Today in the news briefs: Trump’s administration is paying for TV ads promoting Trump with taxpayer money, Berlin welcomes the invitation for Putin to attend the G20 summit in Miami, the Supreme Court gives a flawed voter database the green light again, and a jury finds Facebook liable over Cambridge Analytica.
On top of that, Trump is kicking off his announced tour through the toughest midterm races in deep-red Oklahoma and Alabama of all places.
A morning of government advertising, voting rights, Putin, and 87 million Facebook profiles. Plenty for a Saturday.
$430,000 in taxpayer money for Trump on TV: The government pays, the president advertises
For 3 days now, American television has been running an ad paid for by the U.S. government in which Donald Trump appears like a candidate on the campaign trail. On Friday, what started as a relatively small expense turned into a much bigger operation. According to a company that tracks advertising spending, the cost rose from $14,000 to $430,000. Depending on how the networks classify the spot, the amount actually spent could be considerably higher. Its reach grew too. What began as a limited ad buy turned into advertising across multiple television networks in different parts of the country.
The spot runs for 30 seconds. It includes clips of Trump talking about victory over communism. In between are messages touting what are described as the "biggest tax cuts in history." Another graphic promises to revive American manufacturing. Then comes a call to defend law and order and the police. In the background, a choir repeatedly sings "love me." At the end comes the notice that the U.S. government paid for the broadcast. Taxpayers are funding a film whose language is barely distinguishable from Republican campaign advertising. A president does not need to deliver a campaign slogan when the government is already buying him 30 seconds of airtime.
That is exactly where the legal trouble starts. Politicians from both parties questioned on Thursday whether this kind of government-funded advertising is lawful. Federal law bars taxpayer money from being used for "publicity or propaganda" and restricts partisan political activity by government employees. Republican candidates trying to defend their congressional majorities in November are using similar messages about communism and the economy in their own campaign ads. Crime is also being turned into a campaign issue there. The closeness between the government-funded advertising and partisan political messaging is right there on the screen. On Friday, a 2nd spot appeared, also paid for by the U.S. government. No information about its cost was initially available. The 1-minute film aired on a conservative news network and was shown there during at least 2 programs. It features nighttime images of Mount Rushmore. Those are followed by clips from Trump’s speech marking the 250th anniversary of the United States over the July 4 weekend. Trump says this is "not the end." It is "just the beginning of America’s golden age." That line too is getting airtime paid for with public money. Patriotism suddenly has an advertising slot, and someone in the government is paying the bill.
Several senior House Democrats called Thursday for the first spot to be pulled from the air. They described it as a form of government propaganda of the kind one might expect from North Korea. Criticism came from the Republican Party as well. Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who is not running again, called the advertising inappropriate. He compared it to something he would expect from former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. That means the criticism does not fall neatly along the usual party lines. Even where Trump has political support, government-funded self-promotion apparently still requires some explaining. The White House defended the spot. It was "educational and unapologetically patriotic." Asked which part of the government had provided the money, the White House gave no answer. A statement said these public messages were meant to remind Americans to love their country and understand what needed to be defended. It cited the country itself and its borders. The role of the United States abroad was mentioned as well. The message is explained in great detail. Where the money came from, considerably less so.
The whole thing lands right in the middle of an election campaign in which political language and the machinery of government are already sitting closer and closer together. The midterm elections are in November. Republicans are fighting to hold their majorities in Congress. At the same time, a government-funded television ad is running that puts the president at the center and carries political messages that overlap with those used by Republican candidates. Those are exactly the circumstances government publicity laws are meant to address. The government has money and enormous reach. It also carries the authority of the sender. Once those resources can benefit one political camp, the line between information and advertising becomes a question of democratic hygiene.
The amount does not make the matter harmless. $430,000 is not an enormous sum by the standards of a national campaign, but taxpayer money does not change its character depending on the number printed on the bill. Today it is 30 seconds. Tomorrow maybe more. The interesting question is therefore not whether that amount decides an election. The question is whether a government should be allowed to start presenting itself with public money in language that comes strikingly close to the messaging of a political party.
The ads are still running. The cost has gone up. Their reach has expanded. At the same time, it remains unclear which government agency is financing them. The White House calls it patriotic education. Democrats call it propaganda, while a Republican senator calls it inappropriate advertising. In between sits the taxpayer, financing the argument over whether he is being informed or already paying for campaign advertising.
Trump invites Putin to Miami: Berlin welcomes the decision while the war continues
Donald Trump wants to bring Vladimir Putin to the G20 summit in Miami in December. German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul welcomes the invitation and sees it as a possible opening for serious negotiations. Russia finally needs to come to the table, he said during his visit to Ottawa. The sentence sounds reasonable. The only problem is that the country sitting on the other side has been waging war against Ukraine for years and, by Wadephul’s own demand, would first have to agree to a ceasefire for any serious talks to begin. So Putin gets the invitation before anyone knows whether Moscow is even prepared to stop the war long enough to talk.
Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand reacted more cautiously. The invitation had surprised her. Canada still will not boycott the summit. Diplomacy, she said, means staying at the table, especially when the conversations are difficult. That could make Miami a place in December where people who so far have mostly faced each other across front lines and missiles suddenly sit across from one another. Volodymyr Zelenskyy himself had suggested to Trump that the G20 summit be used for a meeting between the presidents of the United States, Russia, and Ukraine. According to Zelenskyy, Washington had previously proposed several steps toward de-escalation. Strikes on energy infrastructure are supposed to stop on both sides, the grain corridor in the Black Sea is supposed to resume operations. Direct talks would follow.
Moscow did not need much persuading. Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said as early as September 23 that Russia was grateful to Washington for the invitation and welcomed it. The Kremlin would work out the next steps through diplomatic channels. Miami now suddenly sits between war and negotiation. Trump has opened the door for Putin. Berlin calls it an opportunity. Whether it becomes anything more than a photo with palm trees will not be decided in Florida, but by whether Russia is actually prepared to stop shooting.
Supreme Court opens the door for Trump to use a flawed voter database
The Supreme Court has temporarily allowed the Trump administration to start using the controversial SAVE database again. States can use it to check whether people on their voter rolls are U.S. citizens. The decision comes shortly before the midterm elections. That is exactly what makes it so sensitive. SAVE uses voters’ sensitive personal data and has already wrongly flagged legally registered voters as possible noncitizens. The court’s 3 liberal justices dissented. States are not required to use the system, but the Trump administration is getting back a tool that has already shown how quickly a data error can become a question of whether someone gets to vote.
A federal judge had blocked the revised version of SAVE in June because it could endanger privacy rights and push eligible voters off the rolls. An appeals court initially left that ruling in place. The Supreme Court majority has now relied on a 1996 law that allows the Department of Homeland Security to exchange information about citizenship and immigration status. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson argued the opposite: Even a small number of eligible voters being burdened or excluded would outweigh any harm to a government prevented from using a questionable tool for the time being. The technical access is back. The citizen carries the risk.
SAVE flags U.S. citizens as possible noncitizens
In Travis County, Texas, officials reviewed 97 people whom SAVE had flagged as possible noncitizens. At least 10 percent of them were in fact U.S. citizens. Officials estimated the share may have been as high as 21 percent. That is exactly where the problem becomes visible. A system supposedly designed to prevent voter fraud is itself casting suspicion on people who have every legal right to vote. With a broken shopping cart, that would be annoying. With voting rights, an error can determine whether someone gets to cast a ballot at all.
Anthony Nels of Denton knows what that looks like. The 29-year-old was born in South Africa and has been an American citizen for more than 10 years. SAVE still flagged him as a possible noncitizen. His local election office temporarily removed his registration until he could provide a new passport. Even Stephen Richer, the former top Republican election official in Arizona’s largest county, warns against treating SAVE as final proof. The system could be a starting point at most. A computer creates a suspicion. The citizen then has to prove he is allowed to exist.
Trump searches for masses of illegal voters and finds tiny numbers
Donald Trump has claimed for years that very large numbers of noncitizens take part in American elections. The known numbers do not support that claim. Before the 2024 presidential election, Georgia reviewed 8.2 million registered voters. It found 20 people who were not U.S. citizens. In Ohio, prosecutors brought charges against 9 people accused of voting as noncitizens over a period of 10 years. Ohio has about 8 million registered voters. Even under an administration that has devoted considerable effort to this issue, the Department of Homeland Security reported 160 arrests nationwide.
Trotzdem werden die Werkzeuge größer. Heimatschutzminister Markwayne Mullin brachte im Sommer die Zahl von bis zu 250.000 registrierten Nichtstaatsbürgern in vier Bundesstaaten ins Spiel. Belege legte er dafür nicht vor. Wahlbeamte der betroffenen Staaten erklärten, seine Zahlen lägen weit über ihren eigenen Erkenntnissen. Eine große Zahl von Untersuchungen kommt seit Jahren zu demselben Ergebnis: Nichtstaatsbürger machen nur einen winzigen Anteil der Wählerverzeichnisse aus. Die Behauptung wächst weiter. Die Belege bleiben klein.
Whistleblower warns of errors in Trump’s search for noncitizens
SAVE is only one part of the offensive. Although the system had been blocked for months, the Trump administration told the court it had continued using Social Security Administration data in certain cases. The idea was to verify information and identify possible cases of illegal voting. In August, the Department of Homeland Security also launched its own review of state voter rolls. A federal whistleblower describes the effort as rushed and full of errors. According to the whistleblower, it could even violate state laws.
The department rejects those accusations and says the review is being carried out carefully and professionally. At the same time, Trump is trying through several channels to change the rules governing American elections. Many of those efforts have been blocked by courts because the Constitution places authority over election rules mainly with the states and Congress. In mid-September, Trump already failed in an effort to restrict rules governing mail-in ballots before the midterms. Now his administration is getting more room to operate with SAVE. The problem remains the same: The bigger the tool gets, the stronger the evidence for using it ought to be.
Facebook misled its users - and 87 million profiles ended up in the machinery of political advertising
A jury in New Mexico has said out loud what Facebook spent years burying under lawyers, settlements, and corporate language: The company misled its users about the protection of their data. Cambridge Analytica is at the center of the case. An app built around a personality quiz collected data from around 87 million profiles, and that information was later used for targeted political advertising. One of the clients was Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign. This was not some minor technical failure. People handed over data, Facebook promised protection, and in the end that data was used politically. After a 2-week trial, the jurors concluded that more than 2 million residents of New Mexico had been affected.
How expensive that becomes is still open. The state is seeking $5,000 for every single violation. Meta is getting used to numbers like these. Earlier this year, the company was already ordered to pay a total of $942 million in New Mexico in a case involving the protection of minors. It also faced requirements for age verification and time limits on its platforms.
The story gets especially brazen somewhere else. In August, Meta agreed to a settlement worth up to $18 billion with numerous states. Buried in it was a clause that would protect the company from future liability over Cambridge Analytica. 47 states signed. New Mexico did not. Florida did not either, saying the settlement went too easy on Meta.
That left 1 state that actually took the matter before a jury. That is exactly where the verdict against Facebook has now come down. The scandal had not disappeared. It had simply been wrapped up very expensively for years.
Trump promised 35 battlegrounds - and starts where Republicans should have won long ago
Donald Trump wanted to spend the final stretch before the midterms traveling through the 35 toughest races in the country. Instead, he is starting October in Oklahoma and Alabama. 2 states that normally do not look like emergencies for Republicans. In Durant and Mobile, Trump is likely to get what he loves: packed venues, reliable approval, and an audience that does not need to be talked into liking his name. That is exactly what makes the choice of locations interesting. While Trump has turned the campaign into a personal showdown, some Republican candidates elsewhere are already trying to create a little distance. References to him have been toned down on websites, and open opposition to his war with Iran is growing.
The party explains the route by pointing to the reach of the local television markets. Durant sits near Texas and reaches into the Dallas-Fort Worth area, while Mobile sits close to Florida’s Panhandle. That is not wrong. It just sounds remarkably defensive for a president who had just announced that he would go into the races that were actually close. At the same time, Republican money is now pouring into states that used to be considered fairly safe.
So in Oklahoma and Alabama, Trump gets something that is politically very useful to him: images of enthusiasm. Whether that enthusiasm still reaches far enough beyond the arena doors is another question. He promised 35 competitive races. The first 2 stops say more about how cautious Republicans have become.
