This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Sep. 28, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.

The White House recycled material from President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign for a new taxpayer-funded ad that aired nationwide this past weekend, just weeks before the high-stakes November midterms.

The 30-second black-and-white ad features Trump walking down a hallway to audio of him vowing to “demolish the deep state” and “expel the warmongers from our government,” even as the president wages an illegal and deeply unpopular war on Iran that has killed thousands and driven up prices at home and around the world. During the final 10 seconds of the ad, white text appears at the bottom of the screen stating, “Paid for by the US government.”

The ad is just the latest taxpayer-funded, explicitly pro-Trump spot that the White House has launched in recent days, prompting alarm from lawmakers and government watchdog organizations who say the administration is using public funds to flood airwaves with the president’s campaign ads shortly before an election.

Watch the newly aired ad:

Richard Painter, who served as the White House’s chief ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration, said the taxpayer-funded campaign ads “could be an impeachable offense,” noting that “Congress has expressly prohibited government-sponsored political propaganda, which is dangerous for democracy.”

The federal government appears to have spent more than $1 million on pro-Trump ads in recent days, The New York Times reported on Sunday, citing an estimate from AdImpact.

Last week, as Common Dreams reported, the White House launched a taxpayer-funded ad in which Trump declares that “America will never be a communist country” and promotes tax cuts he signed into law, delivering a massive windfall to the rich and large corporations.

Norm Eisen, former White House special counsel for ethics and government reform, told the Times on Sunday that “the president and his administration have gone from breaking the law to trampling it.”

“The prior ad was bad enough,” said Eisen, “but this one openly repurposes prior political conduct.”

US Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) wrote on social media that Republicans shouldn’t be taken seriously when they claim to care about “waste, fraud, and abuse” as the president and leader of their party runs campaign ads with taxpayer money.

“What a cult this party has become,” Murphy added.

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