The White House would deeply appreciate it if people would stop referring to the government-sponsored ads that recently began airing around the country as “propaganda.” Yes, the three ads heavily feature some combination of President Donald Trump and his supposed accomplishments, snippets of speeches and praise for his vision, and little to no new information. But the White House argued in a press release issued Friday that these are all merely “public service announcements” serving as “a reminder for Americans to love their country and know why it’s worth defending — at home, at the border, and abroad.”
State-sponsored media, with the goal of tying patriotism to the current leader and promoting him as necessary to the country’s success, sure does sound like propaganda.
State-sponsored media, with the goal of tying patriotism to the current leader and promoting him as necessary to the country’s success, sure does sound like propaganda.
If it is, the ads clearly violate a provision added to every government spending bill since the 1950s: “No part of any appropriation … shall be used for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States not heretofore authorized by the Congress.” This prohibition does not apply to legitimate information-sharing and educational materials, which the White House claims these ads are.
The Government Accountability Office has previously said there are three ways that government-produced media can escape the propaganda accusations. Whether in video, print or online, these materials cannot be “self-aggrandizing,” purely partisan in nature or covert propaganda that misleads the public about its source. The White House argues that the ads clear that bar, because they (however imprecisely) are U.S. government-funded, while “President Trump is not on the ballot and there is no call to action.”
The White House then listed three examples from recent administrations, two of which focused on public health. The Obama administration used ads to inform Americans about open enrollment periods for Affordable Care Act-created health insurance markets and available subsidies, while the Biden administration placed television ads encouraging vaccination against Covid-19.
It seems that the White House did not vet its other modern example all that thoroughly. The George W. Bush administration produced, among other materials, a set of print and television ads promoting recently enacted provisions of Medicare Part D coverage. The White House provides a link to a March 10, 2004, ruling from the GAO saying that the propaganda law hadn’t been violated.
But less than two months after that ruling, the GAO learned that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services had not been upfront about who created a set of “video news releases” it had provided to news networks. The materials, which featured contractors posing as reporters in a news segment, prompted the GAO to rule that “the use of appropriated funds for production and distribution of the story packages and suggested scripts violated the publicity or propaganda prohibition” included in the latest government funding bill. (The Bush Justice Department disagreed as to whether CMS had violated the “covert propaganda” ban but otherwise agreed with the GAO’s framework.)
Incredibly, for the final bit of evidence that the Trump ads are not propaganda, the White House chose to cite literal wartime propaganda:
It’s not just modern Administrations. President Woodrow Wilson’s Committee on Public Information used posters, films, and speakers to rally the country. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Office of War Information produced films, radio, and posters to promote the war effort.
The government materials meant to keep Americans on board with World Wars I and II predate the “publicity or propaganda” provision, which first appeared in 1952. And as the links the White House itself provided explain, those efforts were explicitly propagandistic. The last of those links even quotes Elmer Davis, head of the WWII-era Office of War Information, admitting as much: “The easiest way to inject a propaganda idea into most people’s minds is to let it go through the medium of an entertainment picture when they do not realize that they are being propagandized.”
The Trump administration didn’t follow Davis’ advice: the three ads that have aired as of Monday are as subtle as a brick to the face. As such, it’s hard to see how they don’t fall under the category of “self-aggrandizement” or “puffery,” which the GAO has defined as “publicity of a nature tending to emphasize the importance of the agency or activity in question.” And while there are no explicit mention of the Republican Party or the upcoming elections, the tone and tenor are anything but apolitical.
Whichever account those funds were drawn from amounts to an illegal use of money that Congress never condoned.
Beyond that, we have known since The Atlantic first reported it in late August that Trump wanted ads promoting his achievements to air during the midterms. But while Trump’s super PAC would have ostensibly paid for the ads under discussion, making them no less self-promoting but acceptable under the law, the ones aired last week were very much not.
It’s well documented that Trump never pays himself for anything when someone else can foot the bill. But spending taxpayer funds for shameless self-promotion ahead of a crucial election is beyond the pale even for him.
There’s been no indication of exactly which part of the government paid the ad makers that cut together these clips. For all we know, they may have been produced entirely in-house by government employees working on government-issued computers. Whichever account those funds were drawn from amounts to an illegal use of money that Congress never condoned. It is a scandal that would have rightly collapsed past administrations. It is to this era’s discredit that it is yet another day in the age of corruption Trump has ushered into place.
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