White House airs another government-funded ad, this time with Trump warning of ‘final battle’

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The White House has launched another taxpayer-funded television ad before the midterms, this time featuring imagery of President Donald Trump walking down a hall as audio plays of him saying “this is the final battle.”

“We will cast out the communist, Marxists, and fascists. We will throw off the sick political class that hates our country. We will rout the fake news media, and we will liberate America from these villains once and for all,” Trump says in the ad , echoing comments he made during a Veterans Day speech in 2023.

The Trump administration has drawn widespread attention for its airing of ads featuring the president just over a month before the November midterms. The White House has compared the ads to previous administrations running public service announcements about Medicare, Obamacare and promoting Covid-19 vaccination, saying in a statement that its new commercials “are very clearly not campaign ads.”

The latest ad appears nearly identical to the majority of a video Trump posted on Truth Social in January 2024, during his third presidential campaign. The video on Truth Social has an additional six seconds that includes Trump’s campaign logo and a number to text, while “Paid for by the US Government” is seen across the screen at the end of the White House-funded ad.

This is the third government-funded ad to be captured in recent days by the media tracker AdImpact. An ad that began airing Wednesday featured rapidly edited pictures and video of Trump over audio of him denouncing communism and socialism, with text on the screen that touts his administration’s accomplishments, such as “reigniting American manufacturing.”

A second ad features video of Trump at Mount Rushmore as his voice is heard saying, “Never before has any nation celebrated so magnificent a triumph as this one.”

The White House declined to elaborate on how the first ad was being funded but defended it as part of “public service announcements” to promote national pride.

“The ad is educational and unapologetically patriotic,” a White House spokesperson said in a statement. “We should be proud of our country.”

That ad drew scrutiny from the government watchdog group Common Cause, which suggested it could violate rules against using taxpayer dollars for “propaganda.”

“I don’t think you have to be a legal scholar and wonder why the president has to use taxpayer funds to promote his image” this close to an election, Carol Evans, the vice president for policy at Common Cause, told CNN.

Samuel Corum/Getty Images

在中期选举前，白宫又推出了一则由纳税人资助的电视广告，这次的广告画面是唐纳德·特朗普总统走在走廊上，同时播放着他说“这是最后的战斗”的音频。

“我们将驱逐共产主义者、马克思主义者和法西斯分子。我们将赶走仇恨我们国家的病态政治阶层。我们将铲除假新闻媒体，我们将一劳永逸地把美国从这些恶棍手中解放出来，”特朗普在广告中说道，这与他在2023年退伍军人节演讲中的言论遥相呼应。

特朗普政府在11月中期选举前一个多月播出以总统为主角的广告，引发了广泛关注。白宫将这些广告与以往政府播放的有关医疗保险、奥巴马医改和推广新冠疫苗的公益广告相提并论，并在声明中表示，其新广告“显然不是竞选广告”。

最新发布的广告几乎与特朗普在2024年1月第三次总统竞选期间发布在Truth Social网站上的一段视频完全相同。Truth Social上的视频多了六秒钟，包含了特朗普的竞选标志和一个短信号码，而白宫资助的这则广告结尾处则出现了“由美国政府支付”的字样。

这是媒体追踪机构AdImpact近日捕捉到的第三则政府资助的广告。这则从周三开始播出的广告，快速剪辑了特朗普的图片和视频，配以他谴责共产主义和社会主义的音频，屏幕上还配有文字，吹嘘其政府的政绩，例如“重振美国制造业”。

第二则广告播放了特朗普在拉什莫尔山的视频，视频中可以听到他的声音说：“从来没有哪个国家庆祝过如此辉煌的胜利。”

白宫拒绝详细说明第一则广告的资金来源，但辩称这是旨在提升民族自豪感的“公共服务公告”。

白宫发言人在一份声明中表示：“这则广告既有教育意义，又毫不掩饰地表达了爱国情怀。我们应该为我们的国家感到自豪。”

这则广告引起了政府监督组织“共同事业”（Common Cause）的关注，该组织认为这可能违反了禁止使用纳税人的钱进行“宣传”的规定。

“我认为你不需要成为法学专家也能明白，为什么总统要在临近选举的时候动用纳税人的钱来宣传自己的形象，”公共事业组织“共同事业”（Common Cause）的政策副总裁卡罗尔·埃文斯（Carol Evans）告诉 CNN。