Republican Thomas Massie just found a brutally effective way to sum up Donald Trump’s new taxpayer-funded television campaign.
“Don’t worry, using taxpayer dollars to run ominous campaign ads of the President has been done before and is completely legal…”
Then came the punchline:
“…in banana republics.”
Ouch.
(Watch the video below.)
The Kentucky Republican was responding to the Trump administration’s expanding series of government-funded television advertisements featuring the president — including a remarkable new spot that aired during NFL games over the weekend.
And this one looks awfully familiar.
The 30-second black-and-white ad shows Trump walking through a hallway lined with presidential portraits as his voice warns Americans that the country is facing a “final battle.”
“We will demolish the deep state,” Trump declares.
“We will expel the warmongers from our government. We will drive out the globalists. We will cast out the communists, Marxists and fascists.”
Trump goes on to promise that his movement will “rout the fake news media” and “liberate America from these villains once and for all.”
Then the screen reveals who paid for it:
“Paid for by the U.S. Government.”
In other words, taxpayers.
But here’s what makes the ad particularly extraordinary.
It is nearly identical to a video Trump used during his 2024 presidential campaign.
The old version ended by urging viewers to join Trump’s political movement.
The government-funded version removes that campaign call-to-action.
The rest will look extremely familiar to anyone who remembers Trump’s campaign messaging.
According to AdImpact, which tracks political and television advertising, spending on the latest spot has already surpassed $300,000.
And it isn’t confined to conservative cable television.
The “Final Battle” ad aired during multiple NFL games over the weekend, as the White House expands the reach of its taxpayer-funded advertising campaign.
Massie clearly wasn’t impressed.
His “banana republics” jab is particularly notable because the criticism isn’t coming from a Democrat.
It is coming from a Republican congressman who has repeatedly clashed with Trump and paid a political price for doing so.
Massie lost his Republican primary earlier this year after Trump aggressively campaigned against him, following a series of disputes over spending, foreign policy and the Epstein files.
He is now using his remaining time in Congress to take another very public swing at the president.
And he isn’t the only Republican raising questions.
Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy said over the weekend that politicians shouldn’t be allowed to spend public money promoting themselves.
Democrats and government-ethics experts have gone considerably further, questioning whether the advertisements violate federal restrictions on using appropriated money for unauthorized “publicity or propaganda.”
Federal appropriations law has long prohibited agencies from using taxpayer money for unauthorized domestic “publicity or propaganda.”
But whether Trump’s specific advertisements cross that legal line has not been conclusively decided.
The White House insists they don’t.
Administration officials describe the spots as patriotic “public service announcements,” arguing that Trump himself isn’t on the ballot in November and that the advertisements contain no explicit instruction telling Americans how to vote.
Critics aren’t buying it.
And the latest advertisement creates an especially awkward question for the White House because so much of it originated as actual Trump campaign material.
Trump can call it a public service announcement.
The White House can insist it isn’t political.
But Thomas Massie saw a taxpayer-funded advertisement featuring the president delivering his old campaign rhetoric and came away with a rather different comparison.
“Completely legal,” Massie joked.
Just not necessarily in the kind of country Americans would want to emulate.
Don’t worry, using taxpayer dollars to run ominous campaign ads of the President has been done before and is completely legal… in banana republics. https://t.co/HI65p2SNB3
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) September 27, 2026
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