Just before noon today, the President of the United States was standing just inches away from the trophy at the Medinah Country Club outside Chicago, wearing an extra-large suit that bulged along his lower back and a pastel baby blue tie. With a huge grin across his face, a jovial Donald Trump gushed about the “nice reception” he was receiving as the honorary chairman of the Presidents Cup. Almost immediately after that, his right arm jerked back and forth, his face went blank, and his mouth opened to suck in as much air as possible, because on live television, with dozens of cameras pointed right at him, a very loud voice from the crowd yelled directly at him, calling him a “F*CKING P*DOPHILE” for the entire world to hear.
This was the second time in the past two days the resistance came directly at him. Yesterday at the Tennessee-Texas college football game in Knoxville, he was loudly booed when he was introduced and shown on the stadium screen. Today, it wasn’t just what happened on camera, because what we didn’t see was that just outside the gates at Medinah, where the Presidents Cup was being held, several hundred protesters lined both sides of the street. ABC7 Chicago spoke to one of the people who came to protest him. “He is not welcome…We are wanting to send that message loud and clear,” Allison Galvan told the news station.
Minutes before Trump was heckled, he had been repeating the same talking points he has been saying for months now: “Our country is doing great, better than ever before.” This close to the midterms, all his attention is now on trying to make his fellow Americans see what he has done to our country and our economy as a success.
But he knows the truth, and so do most of us. If what he was saying were true, if everything really were so amazing and our country were so prosperous right now, why does he have to keep telling us? If it were actually true, we would all feel it, and his administration would not need to spend our taxpayer money on ads to convince us. It would just be obvious in the lives we are living.
But that is exactly what he has been doing this past week. He is now using our taxpayer dollars, money that should be used for the benefit of the American people, on pseudo-campaign ads for himself. Yesterday, during the Illinois vs. Ohio State college football game that aired on Fox, the Trump administration paid for a 30-second ad spot that was nearly identical to a video his campaign produced in 2024. The ad was an eerie black-and-white video of Donald Trump walking down a hallway and staring directly into the camera, while audio from a campaign speech he gave repeatedly in 2023 and 2024 played in the background.
In it, he said, “This is the final battle,” and “With you at my side, we will demolish the deep state. We will expel the warmongers from our government. We will drive out the globalists. We will cast out the communists, Marxists, and fascists. We will throw off the sick political class that hates our country. We will rout the fake news media. We will liberate America from these villains once and for all.” It aired multiple times again over the weekend, during Fox News Sunday, and during other sports programming across local markets throughout the country.
They are not even trying to hide what they are doing, because in the closing seconds of the video ad, it said, “Paid for by the U.S. Government.”
This is the second taxpayer-funded propaganda ad the White House has paid to have played this week. There was also the one with Donald Trump praising himself over images of rallies and military events. And we are learning just how much money is being spent on them. So far, and these numbers are no doubt already outdated, the first ad had already cost $430,000 in taxpayer money as of Friday, according to AdImpact. This second “final battle” ad has already cost more than $362,000. These are our tax dollars being used to run ads that multiple legal experts and elected officials from both parties have called illegal government propaganda. Even worse is that this is being done just five weeks before the midterm election.
Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana agreed this was wrong when he was on Face the Nation this morning and said, “I do not think any public official, including President Trump, or Kristi Noem, or John Kennedy, should spend public money on private ads for themselves.” Then he paused for a moment, considering the ramifications of what he was about to say, and added, “I think there ought to be a rule, well, there probably is a rule, you can’t spend public money to promote yourself.” He admitted that what the president of the United States is doing is most likely illegal. He even joked that Trump might retaliate against him, or at least try to do that, by making a racist video of him with a sombrero on his head and posting it on social media, much like he did to Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer. Aside from the harm these videos are causing and the serious questions about whether taxpayer money can legally be used to pay for them, Sen. Kennedy also said something else just as important: you cannot criticize our leader without expecting punishment.
The White House, of course, has defended the ads and is saying that they are “public service announcements” that are “educational and unapologetically patriotic.” Four senior Democratic members of Congress, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, and Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, wrote a joint letter calling these ads “the sort of government propaganda one might expect in North Korea, not the United States of America.” Republican Senator Thom Tillis said the first ad was something he would expect from Viktor Orban.
I immediately thought of Viktor Orban as soon as I saw this last ad because they were the same type of thing he did before finally losing his last election earlier this year. He spent 235 million euros of Hungarian taxpayer money on propaganda campaign material that his government labeled “governmental information campaigns.” He paid for billboards across Hungary, and he also paid for ads to be played during soccer matches that aired on state media. This may actually be where Trump and his enablers got the idea in the first place, as Trump had considered Orban a friend and carefully followed his rise and fall from power.
The only saving grace is that not even those ads saved Orban in the end. Peter Magyar still defeated him this past April because the Hungarian people stopped believing the propaganda and lies and finally voted him out.
Putin is doing much of the same right now too, with Russia’s 2026 state propaganda budget set at 146 billion rubles, which is roughly $1.78 billion. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin has spent over $6 billion on state propaganda. It’s not working out for him either. Because despite all of that spending, his state media is losing viewers. Russians are turning away from him.
This is just another piece of the playbook that authoritarian leaders use, especially when they are losing. They just spend more money to push more lies, and they use taxpayer money to do it. Donald Trump isn’t using his own money or donor money. He is wasting money that should be going to helping the American people to cover up his failure as a president.
When you think about everything Donald Trump has done, and everything he is warning us is still to come from that last video alone, it is very easy to see just how much trouble we are in. It’s not that we have never had bad presidents before. Because we absolutely have. There have been ones that were deeply unpopular. We have even had presidents that people truly despised. Presidents who started wars they should not have started, ones who wrecked the economy, and broke promises while betraying the public trust. And people rightfully protested them. But in the entire history of this country, no president has ever had the type of allegations against them that made a member of the public scream those types of words at him on live television more times than I can count. We are so bombarded by the destruction this man is unleashing on our country that there is not enough continued attention on the fact that Donald Trump is accused of these horrendous crimes because his name is referenced in the files thousands of times. And that he is connected to the man who ran one of the most horrific trafficking operations in modern history, someone who was once his closest friend.
That is the man who is in these ads, sharing something more dangerous than propaganda. He is telling us what he is actively working to finish. When he says, “We will demolish the deep state,” he was talking about what he had planned to do with DOGE when he fired tens of thousands of federal workers and coerced many of them into a deferred resignation program. He was talking about destroying USAID and so many of the Executive Orders he signed and cases he took to the Supreme Court. He also says, as a conspiracy theory, that there are these hidden figures inside our government trying to take our country from us.
“We will expel the warmongers from our government.” He did this too and continues to push out anyone who dares disagree with him. He purged national security officials who disagreed with him on matters of grave importance. Then he started a war with Iran without congressional authorization. The most ironic part of this line was that it was recorded back in 2023 at a campaign rally, before he started the war with Iran and the other “military actions” he has taken. The warning in this part is that he is not done. He still has Cuba on his mind, and there is always another country he wants to take over after that.
“We will drive out the globalists.” He withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization. In January of this year, he announced he would be withdrawing the U.S. from 66 international organizations, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, a Senate-ratified treaty that every nation on earth is a part of. He has isolated us and made us and our allies vulnerable while destabilizing the entire planet with his ill-conceived whims. He is still working through this one.
“We will cast out the communists, Marxists, and fascists.” This was always a label for his political opponents, and anyone he doesn’t like or wants to make a target. It is a broad catch-all for those who resist. We have already seen some big names among the people he has used his DOJ to investigate. There is former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Don Lemon, Governor Newsom, and his wife, just to name a few. They and many more have faced unjust investigations at the direction of President Trump. One of the first things he did when he took back office was to weaponize the Department, and now he is taking it to a whole new level after appointing his former personal attorney to lead it.
“We will throw off the sick political class that hates our country.” This is just him saying that dissent is no longer allowed in our country. That if you push back or resist the authoritarian takeover of our country, it means one thing: you hate our country. That is the false narrative he is desperately pushing because if he can get our fellow Americans to see any of us demanding better for the country we love as people who hate America, then he can justify whatever he decides to do next. He is already using the DOJ, ICE, DHS, and the federal government as weapons against our own people if he sees them as a threat. He just needs to completely dehumanize resisters so that we will let him do whatever he wants in the name of protecting our country.
“We will rout the fake news media.” Just days ago, he banned CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House. Their press passes were confiscated by the Secret Service on the order of the Trump administration when they showed up to do their jobs. The White House is now favoring MAGA-friendly organizations as its preferred media organizations for coverage of Donald Trump. He has already sued the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the BBC. Donald Trump will not stop until he has completely dismantled the First Amendment and the freedom of the press.
“We will liberate America from these villains once and for all.” The most important part of what he is saying here is “Once and for all.” Donald Trump is thinking about forever, not working within the limits of his last two years as president. What he is building is a new America where the president has total, unchecked, and permanent control over every branch of American government. He wants to be the only authority throughout the entire land. He wants the Department of Justice to do whatever he asks it to do. He wants to control what Americans see, hear, and read, and he wants to completely ban outlets and only run propaganda with our taxpayer dollars on state media. He wants complete control of the elections, and he wants to turn them into elections in name only, with no real choice, just the illusion of choice beneath the fading shadow of what was once a democratic republic.
The ad that he is now playing on TV is not a traditional campaign ad. He is not on the ballot and he is not running for re-election. He is running in November to never have to run again. To end free and fair elections. To complete his authoritarian takeover of our country. That is why he decided to do something that so many people are calling illegal.
Right now we still have time to stop this. We can still save our country, but the time is running out. If you have seen these videos, you know how disturbing they are. If you haven’t seen them, I am including instructions on how to watch them below. This is another time when we need to have our voices heard. Call your representatives and ask for investigations and for them to stop further ads. Tell them you are not okay with this. Right now there is not much they can do, but the more they hear from us, the better. Because in January, when the new Congress is seated, they can start hearings into everything Trump has done, and this needs to be a part of that. We can also talk to the people in our lives so that they know what he is doing and why it is wrong. Donald Trump will most likely be running more of these ads, so we need to get ahead of them so people see them for exactly what they really are: propaganda and lies filled with scare tactics.
Today someone reminded Donald Trump that we see him for exactly who he is and that we have not forgotten about his ties to a trafficking ring. At great risk to themselves, they walked right up to the President, looked him in the eye, and on live television, said the words directly to his face.
He heard it, his arm jerked, his face went blank, and he turned and walked away. The message was heard loud and clear. Donald Trump can do every single thing he is threatening to do in that ad. But he cannot silence all of us, and he cannot outrun what the country already knows. People are no longer afraid to say it to his face, and it is only going to get worse for the man trying to destroy our country. That is why I still have hope for America. You should, too.
I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather
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This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.
Picture of the day: It’s good to be home and back with our pets. When I was writing about travel, we used to be away from home for over 150 days a year, but that was also before our puppies joined the family. The first was a pandemic puppy in 2020, and then we got this little one two years later because the first had such terrible separation anxiety. Having her “little sister” around definitely helped her, but I’m afraid we now have the separation anxiety when we are separated from them! I don’t think we could ever go back to traveling on that intense of a schedule.
We do plan to start traveling again, hopefully this coming spring. This time to talk to people all over the world about what is happening with the rise of far-right extremism and how we can work together, beyond borders, to stop it. There is still so much to see and explore, and so many people we want to meet and learn from along the way. Maybe that is what I miss most. But tonight, I am very happy to be home, with two little puppies and a kitten who apparently missed us almost as much as we missed them.
Links to sources used in writing this article:
Video Link to “F--king P-dophile!”
https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/27/politics/white-house-trump-government-funded-ad
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/27/trump-government-funded-ads-midterms.html
President Donald J Trashdump came at me in a black and white stupor today while I was watching the football game. He did it a number of times trying to hypnotize me into believing the country is doing well and the warmongers and the deep state (the Trump government who paid for the fucking ad) were driven from the government! How rude! How stupid!
For all the money they spent, it could at least have been in color and included members of the SNL cast, but noooo….
Mr. tRump is wrong about people who disagree with him “hating America”—it’s not America they hate but his perverted, corrupt version of America.