President Donald Trump interrupted an Oval Office event on Monday to deliver an unprompted, on-camera endorsement of Scotts Miracle-Gro, telling attendees — and a national audience — that he owed the lawn-care company a public mention because it had worked on the White House grounds without charge.

The remark came as Trump was touting renovations to the building, including a new ballroom and what he referred to as a rooftop drone port.

"The best grass you can get. Scotts, you know Scotts? Scotts Miracle-Gro, they're doing it. They do great grass," Trump said. "I got to give him a plug because they did the White House for free."

In a separate clip, Trump gestured toward the South Lawn and said the grass was "being all all replaced with the top stuff." He also declared that Washington, D.C. had been transformed into "Shangri-La."

The Ohio-based company had already attracted ethics scrutiny before Monday's shout-out. In June, Scotts Miracle-Gro committed $1 million in cash and product to assist the National Park Service in repairing the South Lawn after it was damaged by the June 14 UFC Freedom 250 event that Trump hosted on the grounds. The White House stated that no taxpayer funds would be used.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) flagged the arrangement at the time. "Major corporations generally don't do things out of the goodness of their heart," CREW vice president Jordan Libowitz told The Washington Post. "It's generally — they do things for the government because they want something from the government."

While federal ethics rules generally prohibit executive branch employees from using public office to endorse products, the president and vice president are exempt from key conflict-of-interest statutes — a legal carve-out that ethics groups including CREW have repeatedly said leaves accountability for such moments to Congress and voters.

Scotts' former chief executive Jim Hagedorn, who departed the company in June 2026, has been a vocal Trump ally. In a July 2025 interview on Fox Business, he described himself as a "major fan" of the president and said he had spoken with Trump "multiple times" about federal marijuana policy — an issue central to Scotts' Hawthorne cannabis-cultivation subsidiary, one of the largest suppliers of hydroponic and lighting equipment to the legal cannabis industry. Federal marijuana rescheduling from Schedule I to Schedule III has been under active review by the Drug Enforcement Administration, a decision that would reshape the regulatory landscape for companies with cannabis-adjacent businesses like Hawthorne.

Campaign finance filings tracked by OpenSecrets show that Scotts Miracle-Gro and its affiliates donated approximately $770,000 during the 2024 election cycle, including $500,000 to Make America Great Again Inc., the primary pro-Trump super PAC. The company has also been listed among corporate supporters of the president.

Scotts, founded in 1868 and headquartered in Marysville, Ohio, describes itself as the leading marketer of branded consumer lawn and garden products in North America, with approximately $3.4 billion in annual sales.