Daily Show shreds Trump over his taxpayer funded ads – and gets a Reflecting Pool jab in to do it
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The Daily Show took aim at President Donald Trump’s taxpayer-funded television ads that recently hit the airwaves, portraying them as plainly indefensible.
Host Jordan Klepper addressed the ads Tuesday, after the 30-second spots featuring footage of Trump appeared on several networks, including Fox News and NBC News, in the lead-up to the midterm elections, resulting in bipartisan criticism.
In one ad, Trump vows to “throw off the sick political class that hates our country” and “rout the fake news media.” In another, the president states that “America will never be a communist country.” All of them include the disclaimer: “paid for by the U.S. government.”
“Now that is messed up,” Klepper said. “The government shouldn’t be spending taxpayer dollars on campaign ads for President Trump. It should be spending that money on figuring out how to put water in the Reflecting Pool. Keep at it boys. We are close to cracking it.”
Klepper was referring to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which the Trump administration spent tens of millions renovating before it developed algae problems and peeling paint.
“The point is, spending taxpayer money on a campaign ad is clearly indefensible,” Klepper said. “So, let’s see how the White House ‘defensibles’ it.”
He then highlighted a White House statement that characterized the ads as public service announcements. “The announcements are very clearly not campaign ads; President Trump is not on the ballot and there is no call to action,” the White House said.
“Right, right. It can’t be a campaign ad because Trump is not even on the ballot,” Klepper said, crossing his arms. “It’s just I feel like I heard someone say something different.”
Klepper then played footage of the 80-year-old president telling supporters at a recent rally: “I’m asking you to pretend that I’m on the ballot. I’m on the ballot. I’m on it.”
Trump has repeatedly urged Republicans to vote as though he were on the ballot in the midterm elections, which are now about one month away.
“But there is one other thing that makes me think this is a campaign ad, which is that this is literally a campaign ad they ran two years ago,” Klepper said. “It’s the exact same footage.”
Klepper then aired a 2024 campaign ad featuring the same black-and-white footage of Trump walking down a hallway. ABC News also reported that one of the recent “public service announcements” appears identical to a 2024 Trump campaign ad.
Asked about the overlap, a White House spokesperson told ABC News that the PSAs “are about reminding Americans to love their country and understand what makes it worth defending, at home, at our borders, and abroad.”
The spots have drawn criticism from both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, who have questioned why taxpayer money is being used to fund them.
“This may be felony criminal theft and conversion of government property for political campaign purposes,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, wrote on X. “It is a Hatch Act violation for any government employees who worked on it or used government resources to make it. It is blatantly unethical under numerous federal ethics provisions proscribing the use of government resources for political campaigns.”
The Hatch Act is a decades-old federal law that restricts partisan political activity by most federal employees.
“I don’t think any public official — including President Trump or Kristi Noem or John Kennedy — should spend public money on private ads for themselves,” Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, told CBS News over the weekend.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, meanwhile, said the ads pushed “a great message” but added they “shouldn’t be paid for with taxpayer dollars.”
CNN reported this week that Trump personally handpicked the video and images used in the ads.
The Independent has contacted the White House for comment.
