Outrage mounted Friday over a taxpayer-funded television advertisement glorifying President Donald Trump, with critics describing the 30-second spot as self-aggrandizing propaganda and questioning whether the administration violated federal law restricting the use of public money for partisan communications. The ad—which aired this week…
Page F2From§Eachthe wee small hours edition — 30 September 2026
Taxpayers bought the president's ad on CBS; CBS booked a former ethics chief to ask if that's legal.
As it ran on the front
A thirty-second television spot is a small purchase. This one aired this week on Fox News, on Newsmax, and on CBS: the president at rallies, at White House events, at sporting events, alongside military personnel, boasting about his record. ABC News reported Friday that the administration is running it and that the funding is taxpayer money.
So I went looking for the invoice. The receipts do not carry one. No buy total, no rate, no agency of record, no appropriation line. What the receipts carry instead is a legal question: critics asked Friday whether the administration violated the federal law restricting the use of public money for partisan communications. A restriction is not a number. It does not show up in a ledger until somebody goes looking for it, and the spending clears while they look.…
…(cont) Five days after that Friday, on Wednesday, CBS News booked Christopher Swartz, former acting chief of ethics law at the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, on "The Daily Report" to discuss the controversy. That puts the network in this story twice: once holding the receivable, once hosting the question about who wrote the check.
The check has a precedent in the same household. In July, Trump Media & Technology Group announced a program on Truth Social giving subscribers who pay a monthly fee of up to $100,000 early access to key decision-makers' posts. Ethics experts and Democratic lawmakers, including Representative Jamie Raskin, objected. On September 18, two watchdog groups sued the president and other officials over what they called a pay-to-play scheme.
Set the two side by side, because they are the same product under two billing arrangements. Early access to the man: up to $100,000 a month, charged to the subscriber, who chose it. Thirty seconds of the man's record on cable news: charged to the taxpayer, who did not choose it and cannot cancel it. In the first column the payer at least receives the posts. In the second the payer receives the ad.
I am not going to call it illegal. The suit filed September 18 covers the subscriptions, and the question about the spot is still the kind of question a former ethics official goes on television to discuss. I will call it what the ledger calls it: an expenditure with a beneficiary and no itemization. Hon, when they tell you the account is empty, ask which account. This one had thirty seconds in it, on three channels, at whatever the rate was.
“They ran a commercial about a guy, on three channels, and handed you the bill — and one of those channels took the money and then put a segment on the air asking whether taking the money was legal. Same summer his own company started renting early access to his posts for up to a hundred grand a month, and it took two watchdog groups filing suit to make anybody itemize it. When the government starts advertising the man instead of the services, you stopped being the customer; you're the budget line.”
“It's informational. Public-information spending, telling the public what the administration has accomplished, that's a legitimate government function, that's not promotion — did I say promotion? That doesn't sound like me. And if CBS ran the spot and CBS also booked the ethics guy, then obviously the system is working fine, and the lawsuit is about Truth Social, which is a different company, which I'd explain further if I'd read it.”
The receipts
The Secret Service diverted $1.17 billion in appropriated funds toward the ballroom project Sen. Blumenthal, official release
Ethics expert on taxpayers paying for Trump's new adsChristopher Swartz, former acting chief of ethics law at the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, joins "The Daily Report" to discuss the controversy over a series of new White House television ads paid for by taxpayers.
· Watchdogs Sue to Stop Wall Street's 'Pay-to-Play' Access to Trump Truth Posts from the morgue, 18 Sep 2026
· Administration's pro-Trump TV ad is taxpayer-funded from the morgue, 25 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.