CBP Got $20 Million for a ‘Media Campaign.’ Lawmakers Say It Was a Misuse of Funds.

On Sept. 19, the White House Office of Management and Budget gave Customs and Border Protection $20 million for “OBBBA commemorative events.” The next day, CBP awarded the advertising company LMD Agency Inc. a contract for $20 million for a “national media campaign.”

Three days later, the administration began running pro-Trump national ads featuring the president railing against communism and praising his past achievements. The advertisements, which closely resemble past ads run for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, have come under intense scrutiny for using taxpayer funds.

Lawmakers are now pointing to the $20 million apportionment as an unauthorized use of funds, claiming the administration went around Congress to pay for an ad campaign that the law had deemed prohibited.

“It came from the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill.’ It was taken out of funding that was supposed to be for Customs and Border Protection,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) told The Washington Sun. “We already have in the appropriations bill a funding restriction that is in the (Financial Services and General Government) bill, and that would have prohibited that. That’s why the administration went around the appropriations process and used an account that was part of the reconciliation bill.”

The pro-Trump ads are being paid for with money from CBP, according to two sources familiar with the spending. The Wall Street Journal first reported that the advertising spending came from CBP.

LMD Agency did not respond to a request for comment. The White House did not confirm or deny the purpose of the contract, but defended the advertisements as public service announcements.

“These public service announcements are about reminding Americans to love their country and understand what makes it worth defending, at home, at our borders, and abroad,” a White House spokesperson said. “The ad is educational and unapologetically patriotic. We should be proud of our country.”

Democrats condemned the spending Tuesday as an improper use of funds.

“It appears DHS has dedicated $20 million to this outrageous scheme, tapping funds provided to U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Republicans’ ‘One Big Beautiful Bill Act’ for commemorative events relating to border security,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Washington), the ranking member on the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut), the ranking member on the Department of Homeland Security appropriations subcommittee, said in a letter Tuesday to DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin.

“The Trump administration used funding allocated for Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in Republicans’ ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ to pay for President Trump’s government funded political ads that started running last week,” the office of House Appropriations ranking member Rosa DeLauro (D-Connecticut) said in a press release.

On Sept. 23, the first ad, which featured a montage of Trump speaking about the risks of “communism, socialism and Marxism” to the soundtrack of “Love Me,” began running on Fox News and Newsmax. The commercial ends with the tagline: “Paid for by the U.S. Government.”

The administration has now run three different taxpayer-funded ads with the same “Paid for by the U.S. Government” label. The second ad featured clips from Trump’s speech at Mount Rushmore for the country’s 250th birthday celebration, while the third reused a 2024 campaign video.

LMD Agency received the $20 million contract from the CBP’s public affairs office as part of a larger contracting vehicle the ad agency already has with the US Coast Guard.

That larger contracting vehicle is normally used for Coast Guard recruitment campaigns, according to a review of federal spending databases. Because LMD Agency already had a larger “indefinite delivery vehicle” contract, CBP did not have to run a separate solicitation process to award the contract.

The ads have drawn significant rebuke from members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota), who called them “a great message” that “shouldn’t be paid for by taxpayer dollars.”

Federal law prohibits the use of taxpayer dollars for “for publicity or propaganda.”

“The ads closely mirror campaign ads aired by the Trump campaign in 2024, and the transparently partisan nature of the ads raises important questions about if the administration unlawfully used public funds to pay for the updated ads,” said a spokesperson for the nonprofit legal advocacy organization Democracy Forward in a statement.

“This is a banana republic in which the president is just blatantly stealing taxpayer money to run political ads,” Murphy told The Sun. “There was no notification of Congress.”