'27 Billion Won' in Taxpayer Funds for Trump Ads... Court: "Cancel All Remaining Airings"

$20 Million Spent from the Department of Homeland Security Budget
New York Federal Court: "Illegal Diversion of Federal Funds"

A U.S. government advertising campaign criticized for using taxpayer money to promote President Donald Trump has been halted by a court.

According to reports by the Associated Press and other outlets on October 11 local time, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued a temporary restraining order that day, saying the government had illegally diverted federal funds to run the ads and must cancel all remaining placements.

U.S. President Donald Trump

The court ordered that “no contract may be entered into, renewed, or expanded to allow the production, distribution, implementation, or airing of the advertisements in question.” The Justice Department argued that the ads had ended that day and that the lawsuit therefore had no practical purpose, but the court ordered the cancellation of all remaining placements, including those scheduled to air that night.

Five ads had aired since late September. They praised President Trump and repeated his political messages. One featured a choir repeatedly singing “Love me” as Trump declared, “America will never become a communist country.” The ads also included a rerun of one of Trump’s previous presidential campaign ads and footage of the arrest of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

The issue is that the $20 million (approximately 26.8 billion won) spent on the ads—which effectively promoted Trump personally ahead of the midterm elections—came from the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) budget. DHS argued that the funds could be used to promote efforts related to border security, but the court rejected that argument.

Citing legal experts, the Associated Press noted that “this use of funds violates federal law, which bars the use of government appropriations approved by Congress for specified purposes for political promotion or propaganda.”

Democracy Forward, the legal organization representing the plaintiffs, criticized the spending, saying, “There is no legal justification or precedent for a president to use funds that government agencies and Congress allocated for other purposes to influence election results in line with his own political goals.” Even some Republicans raised concerns about the source of the advertising funds.

As criticism of the ads mounted, President Trump said he would pay for them from his campaign account. On October 5, he said on his social media platform Truth Social that the ads were “positive promotion for our great America,” but added, “We will no longer make ads with taxpayer money; I or my MAGA political action committee will pay for them.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.