Trump ads paid for by US government allegedly violate anti-propaganda laws
Broadcasters should be ordered to stop running Trump commercials that appear to violate US laws, consumer advocacy group Public Citizen said today in a complaint to the Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission. The ads appear to violate laws against using taxpayer funds for propaganda and a law that restricts political activity by federal government employees, the group said.
“The most recent of these taxpayer-funded campaign ads, entitled ‘The Final Battle,’ is a copied version of an ad that the Trump campaign committee issued in the 2024 election,” Public Citizen wrote. “In dead serious black-and-white footage, Trump is seen marching down a corridor with a stern look, while the audio blares: ‘This is the final battle. With you at my side, we will demolish the deep state. We will expel the warmongers from our government.’ A notice at the bottom of the screen announces: ‘Paid for by the US government.’”
Trump also says in the ad, “We will cast out the communists, 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.” It uses the same video and audio from an ad Trump used in 2024, with the main difference being that the 2024 version was paid for by Trump’s campaign committee instead of the US government. The White House claims its recent ads are public service announcements.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/09/trump-ads-paid-for-by-us-government-allegedly-violate-anti-propaganda-laws/Open linkView original on lemmy.dbzer0.com
46 replies
Add it to the crime pile over there in the corner. Wait, sorry; it’s grown a bit since I last checked. You want the crime pile sitting on the horizon that looks vaguely like Mt. Whitney.
pilemountainOh we've got him now boys!
Rofl
The word allegedly is going to need a long vacation after this government is gone.
Yeah I am tired of broad daylight crimes with ample evidence treated as "alleged."
It's like saying the murder is "alleged" when the cops showed up to see the murderer in the act of stabbing the victim over and over and it was all caught on their fucking body cameras. They had to pull the murderer away from the victim's body. "Alleged."
It's all due to legal liability. Even in your example, it's theoretically in the realm of possibility that the cops found the person stabbing a body that was already dead. It's stupid, but if they just say alleged, most of the possible lawsuits just go away.
What do you expect, our government to actually know what our laws are?
Guess what? We wont get it. It will just get worse and worse.
Oh look, YET ANOTHER thing Trump and his Epstein cronies violated.
CONSEQUENCES?
WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING TO BE DONE ABOUT IT?
I'M TIRED OF ASKING THIS QUESTION!
I'VE BEEN SAYING FOR ABOUT 2 YEARS NOW, IT FEELS LIKE WATCHING A CROOK BREAK INTO EVERY HOUSE ON THE STREET, SHOOT EVERYBODY, STEAL ALL THE VALUABLES, AND SET THE HOUSES ON FIRE WHILE THE POLICE JUST STAND THERE AND SAY "THAT MIGHT BE ILLEGAL"
Well said! I bet Nixon is spinning in his grave now at how Trump is behaving: "You mean I could have stayed in office and faced no consequences!?" I know the world has changed, Democrats and Republicans were both closer to whatever one would call center back then.
“We will expel the warmongers from our government.”
Weird way to announce your resignation, but I’ll take it
With this content, I'd leave the ads running. They are reminding people of his broken promises.
But Kamala laughed funny.
That and a coordinated voter suppression campaign that ramped up massively in 2024.
Wow, he sounds just like hitler...
Also,
He is the warmonger in our fucking government.
Also,
Who's gonna give that order? Those agencies are run by trump-appointees...
Yeah no kidding.
He doesn’t care. He’s going to keep breaking laws until held accountable and nobody has the balls to actually do that.
We won’t live long enough for face consequences so in effect he doesn’t have any.
The fuck does "balls" have to do with it?
Either you're a complete fucking moron about what can and cannot be done to stop him, or you're calling for violence against him as a way to change this, which makes you a different kind of complete fucking moron.
I’m sure the architect of project 2025 will bring down the hammer on him.
Allegedly you say?
Guy who controls the cops and has absolute immunity for any crime he commits according to the Supreme Court commits another crime.
.
Imagine if this was the reason he finally goes to jail
.
They keep pushing. Their entire premise is that the President has absolute power and authority. They keep doing these things to… prove it. If nobody says NO, he indeed has the authority to do this.
I thought america told itself it hated kings. I know they never really did as they go way over the top for the president., like their enaguration is a crowing ceremony basically.
Nearly everything he does violates at least one law.
So you know what I thought was particularly outrageous? Those Israel superbowl ads. I don't understand how a foreign country was allowed to buy propaganda airtime in the United States. They've run so many ads. Is our government just defunct? We are persecuting night time comedians for Talarico interviews but propaganda gets green lit.
One hint: $
It helps to know the following when reading news nowadays.
Allegedly = It absolutely is true but we don’t have the money for a counter suit from billionaires
Wait a minute. You mean to tell me conservatives are engaging in fascism?!
Whaaaaaaaa????
we have anti-propaganda laws?
Oh c'mon, those are more like "suggestions" than actual laws.
Operation Mockingbird was over fifty years ago. Fake news is older than you think; we orchestrate events at home and abroad to allow the news to report on it in certain ways and shape public opinion. We're sneaky like that in the CIA.
Well looks like Wednesday to me.
So just charge him. Oh, wait, the SCOTUS sez you can't do that.
So, anyways...
NOTHING. WILL. HAPPEN. BECAUSE. AMERICANS. DO. NOTHING.
Just fyi, this here, this comment you’ve made, is extremely helpful. Thank you 🙏
I'm sure the democratic politician will send a very stern letter. Or maybe even sit silently with a sign saying "I don't like what he is doing".
I mean, what more could you possibly expect anyone to do in the face of fascism?
Well I look at the national debt, once that implodes people might start organizing. I don't think we are gonna manage our way out of it
Not disagreeing
However, you do understand that it has like 12 times the population while also being slightly larger than Australia?
That's so unfair and obviously not true. They do so much.
They consume. Like a lot. They keep repeating: we can't really do anything about it. That takes at least some effort. They ignore reality so hard, which can't be easy at this point.