Sports fans have erupted as Donald Trump invaded NFL and college football broadcasts with a taxpayer-funded promotional blitz.
Viewers across the country began furiously posting on social media after spotting a number of bizarre commercials promoting the 80-year-old president’s second-term agenda ahead of the Nov. 3 midterms, each with the disclaimer: “Paid for by the U.S. Government.”
“I am legitimately speechless,” one person fumed on Reddit. “WE F–KING PAID FOR THAT GOVERNMENT PROPAGANDA!”
Among other games, the ads popped up during broadcasts of the Friday college showdown between the Northwestern Wildcats and Indiana Hoosiers, as well as Saturday’s between the Ohio State Buckeyes and Illinois Fighting Illini.
They also ran on Sunday during NFL games between the Detroit Lions and New York Jets, the Cleveland Browns and Carolina Panthers, and the Washington Commanders and Seattle Seahawks.
“I assumed it was a campaign or advocacy ad,” one user wrote in a Reddit discussion of the Commanders-Seahawks game. “But no. They paid for it with our tax dollars. The brazenness is always shocking but never surprising.”
“People should serve jail time for spending my tax dollars on this dystopian s–t,” another person commented in a separate thread.
“All the adults have left the room and are just waiting this out,” a third wrote, adding: “Normal people letting these out of touch with real life sociopaths get away with this BS is scary.”
Others said they had “immediately turned the game off after I saw it,” that the president’s sudden appearance had “jumpscared my wife,” and that the clips were “as close to state-run propaganda as I’ve seen in this country in my lifetime.”
The online backlash came after the president was hit with a chorus of boos at the Tennessee Volunteers’ game against the Texas Longhorns at Knoxville’s Neyland Stadium on Saturday.
The Trump administration launched its barrage last Wednesday, airing what appears to be a series of three distinct commercials both nationally and through local-market television placements. Some of the bigger names to have hosted the clips include Fox, Newsmax, CBS, and NBC.
The first ad features pro-Trump imagery and clips of the president’s policy boasts, alongside bombastic claims that “America will never be a communist country,” all set to the tune of R&B singer JMSN’s 2009 hit Love Me. JMSN accused Trump of using the song “illegally.”
A second includes clips of Mount Rushmore as the president trumpets the “beginning of the golden age of America,” while the third has campaign audio clips playing over black-and-white footage of Trump walking down a hallway, pledging an imminent “final battle” with his political enemies.
The president’s ratings have plummeted throughout his second term amid a run of scandals and controversies that have included the Epstein Files furor, widespread allegations of corruption, soaring unaffordability, and a disastrous war with Iran.
Trump, despite some pollsters putting his approval as low as 32 percent, has responded to a 7-point Democratic lead in next month’s race for control of the House and Senate by asking voters to imagine he’s on the ballot.
The advertising push seems aimed at strengthening that plea. Legal experts have warned the taxpayer-funded commercials are almost certainly illegal, and even members of Trump’s own party have struggled to see the sense in them.
“I don’t think any public official, including President Trump… should spend public money on private ads for themselves,” Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy told CBS News on Sunday. He added that “I may end up with a sombrero on my head” for making that argument, in reference to an AI-generated video Trump posted attacking Democrats.
North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, who is retiring in the new year, also slammed the move as “inappropriate” and said the ads were more like something he’d expect of an authoritarian leader, like right-wing former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a Trump ally.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment on this story. Trump’s office released a statement over the weekend insisting that the commercials are little more than “public service announcements” and that “patriotism isn’t partisan.”
