CBS Airs Second Taxpayer-Funded Trump Administration Advertisement

A second commercial glorifying President Donald Trump, paid for by taxpayers, aired on CBS stations Thursday night as the network continues its push to the right.

The latest version of the ad featured the military operation to capture former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife and follows the anti-communist commercial that aired on Fox News earlier this week. The commercials have sparked alarm and accusations of “propaganda” and others referring to it as a “campaign” ad.

CBS News’ White House correspondent Weijia Jiang told viewers that the network planned to broadcast the second ad. “It’s the words, ‘Paid for by the U.S. government,’ that is drawing fire,” she said. “A similar ad will air on this network tonight.”

While CBS aired the second ad Thursday night, the network’s boss David Ellison, CEO of its parent company Paramount Skydance, was at the White House ahead of a state dinner with Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Reporters for CNN were shut out of the event by the White House amid the ongoing feud over access, while Ellison – on the verge of acquiring CNN’s parent company Warner Bros Discovery – attended the soiree with his wife.

The intense 30-second ad that aired on Fox, titled “America Will Never Be a Communist Country,” raised eyebrows over its content and use of the song Love Me by the artist JMSN, who has publicly denounced the administration for using the track without permission.

It comes amid Trump’s media ban and accusations that the president has launched his own “state-run media” operation in response.

Multiple versions of the ads were produced by the Trump administration, which paid for the airtime through an external ad agency, according to CBS News.

The White House denied the ad was political when reached for comment Thursday by The Independent.

“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,” the spokesperson said. “The ad is educational and unapologetically patriotic. We should be proud of our country.”

The network’s decision to air the ad follows scrutiny of its lurch to the right since Paramount merged with Skydance and took over the company last year. Under the leadership of editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, CBS News has seen the departure of several producers and reporters, some of whom have accused the editor-in-chief of undermining the network’s journalistic integrity.

Since taking over last year, Weiss has been accused of interfering in her staff’s reporting to push for a more conservative political agenda.

Democrats reacted to the Trump ads with fury, with Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire writing to Trump’s chief of staff Susie Wiles for information about the use of taxpayer dollars.

“The advertisement does not have a clear official government purpose and appears to run afoul of federal prohibitions against the use of appropriated funds as part of 'a general propaganda effort designed to aid a political party or candidates,’” Hassan wrote in the letter.

Democrats on the House and Senate Appropriations committees also wrote to Wiles, accusing the administration of producing “the sort of propaganda one might expect in North Korea, not the United States of America.”

“It is an egregious and illegal misuse of Americans' hard-earned tax dollars,” the Democrats added.

In response, a White House official said that the president “is not on the ballot and the ads don't have a call to action.”