FactCheck.org is reporting that legal and political experts dispute the White House's defense of three taxpayer-funded advertisements featuring President Donald Trump, which began airing in late September.
The White House said in a Sept. 25 press release that the announcements are "very clearly not campaign ads," noting that Trump is not on the ballot and there is no call to action. It said the messages are reminders for Americans to love their country and know why it is worth defending, and compared them to federally funded messages under Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
But experts told FactCheck.org the Trump ads are different. Richard Painter, a corporate law professor and former White House ethics lawyer for George W. Bush, said he did not think any comparison could be found. Painter and three other ethics experts wrote for the Contrarian that the commercials are political messages intended to influence the 2026 midterms and may violate U.S. laws, including a prohibition on using federal funds for propaganda. They wrote that even during the McCarthy era and the Cold War, the government never came close to making such an ad.
John G. Geer, a political science professor at Vanderbilt University, also told FactCheck.org he sees the ads as more political and does not personally accept the public service announcement argument.
FactCheck.org said the first ad shows Trump saying, "Together we will defeat communism, socialism, and Marxism in America." Another features video and audio from his July 3 speech near Mount Rushmore. The most recent ad, nearly identical to one from his 2024 campaign, shows Trump saying he will "demolish the deep state" and "cast out the communists, Marxists and fascists." The messages drew pushback from some Republican lawmakers, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana.
Separately, FactCheck.org is reporting that social media posts from Democrat James Talarico and the Democratic Party used only a snippet of Republican Ken Paxton's 2022 remarks about the Uvalde, Texas, elementary school shooting, depriving voters of full context.
FactCheck.org also said a Republican super PAC's claim that North Carolina Senate candidate Roy Cooper "let 16,000 untested rape kits sit on the shelf" as state attorney general is misleading.
FactCheck.org reported that a new Annenberg Public Policy Center survey of more than 1,900 adults, conducted Aug. 4 to 17, found 31% said Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recommended measles vaccination for children, up from 23% in August 2025. It said 29% thought he did not recommend the MMR vaccine and 40% were unsure. FactCheck.org said 68% correctly said it is false that childhood vaccines such as the MMR vaccine cause autism, and that no credible link has been found. It said the CDC has confirmed 3,659 measles cases in the U.S. this year as of Sept. 24, more than any year since 1991.