Judge expands order blocking taxpayer-funded Trump ads from TV and social media

A federal judge in Manhattan ordered the Trump administration on Friday to stop distributing three taxpayer-funded advertisements that promote the president's agenda, the latest setback in a monthslong legal fight over a government-paid campaign that watchdog groups call illegal political propaganda. U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Rochon directed that the spots be pulled from official government websites and social media platforms, including YouTube and Instagram, and barred the administration from funneling them through outside distributors, including President Trump's super PAC, MAGA Inc.

The ruling is an expansion of a temporary restraining order Rochon first issued on Oct. 11 in a lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York by the nonpartisan watchdog group Common Cause, a union member named Robert Hunter, the Service Employees International Union's Local 32BJ and its political action committee. The three ads newly blocked are titled "$5,000 to Americans," which touts a Trump claim that Americans will receive a $5,000 payment if Republicans hold Congress; "Every Democrat Voted Against No Tax on Tips"; and "Cost of Socialism." The plaintiffs had asked the court to pull at least 13 ads from the campaign; Rochon declined to block the rest, writing that she expects the government will ultimately prevail on many of them.

A campaign built on shifted funds

The dispute centers on roughly $20 million that the Office of Management and Budget routed into a Department of Homeland Security budget line, which plaintiffs say paid for dozens of ads glorifying the administration and attacking its critics ahead of Tuesday's midterm elections. Government lawyers have told the court the administration had already spent about $19 million of that money by the time the first restraining order took effect, and the White House has said Trump does not intend to reimburse taxpayers for ads that already aired. One of the earliest spots reused footage from Trump's 2024 campaign.

Rochon's order is grounded in a decades-old restriction that bars federal agencies from spending appropriated money on "publicity or propaganda purposes not authorized by the Congress," a rider that has appeared in annual spending bills since 1951. The Government Accountability Office has repeatedly enforced the ban, including in a 2005 decision holding that agencies may not produce government-funded news segments that hide their official origin. Rochon found the plaintiffs likely to succeed in showing the administration's ads cross that line, though she also credited a GAO position that allows the president's office to inform the public about its policies and respond to criticism.

Compliance with the original order was uneven. Plaintiffs told the court that some of the originally challenged ads kept airing and that new spots appeared on the official White House YouTube channel the day after Rochon's first order took effect; the Justice Department attributed the lapse to an internal email delay and said the administration was now complying. Plaintiffs did not seek contempt sanctions over the episode, asking instead for a status conference, which Rochon's office used to set the schedule that led to Friday's ruling.

Plaintiffs, defendants and a reshuffled cabinet

The case, filed Oct. 7 and litigated by the legal group Democracy Forward, names as defendants DHS, the Office of Management and Budget, the Executive Office of the President, OMB Director Russell Vought, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, the former Oklahoma senator whom the department's own leadership page now lists as secretary. Mullin was confirmed in March after Trump removed Kristi Noem, a change that followed, among other things, a testy Senate exchange between Noem and Republican Sen. John Kennedy over an earlier, roughly $220 million DHS advertising campaign. Rochon, nominated by President Biden and seated on the bench since 2022, previously served as general counsel of the Girl Scouts of the USA, according to her biography maintained by the Federal Judicial Center.

Common Cause's case is one of at least three lawsuits targeting the ad campaign. The Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Party of Wisconsin have filed separate suits making similar claims, and all three are moving through federal court simultaneously. The administration argues the spots are no different from public-service announcements that past administrations, Democratic and Republican alike, have funded to explain government programs, a position the Associated Press reported Justice Department lawyers repeated in court papers ahead of Friday's hearing.

Reaction on both sides

Plaintiffs welcomed the expanded order as confirmation that the campaign crossed legal lines.

"The court acted swiftly to prevent more taxpayer dollars from being used for such blatantly unlawful political propaganda," the plaintiffs, led by Common Cause, said in a joint statement after the ruling. Common Cause president and chief executive Virginia Kase Solomón added that "our fight continues."

The White House, which did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday's order, has previously pointed to an Oct. 5 post by Trump on Truth Social describing the ads as "positive promotion for our great U.S.A." The administration's lawyers have argued in court filings that staff compiled the spots to inform the public and respond to attacks on administration policy. Criticism of the spending has not broken along strict party lines: Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in October that the ad campaign "shouldn't be paid for with taxpayer dollars," even as he stopped short of calling it unlawful.

What comes next

Rochon's restraining order now runs through Nov. 8, and she has set oral arguments for Nov. 4 on Common Cause's request for a longer-term preliminary injunction that would cover the full slate of challenged ads, not just the three blocked Friday. That timeline means the core legal question — whether the campaign amounted to unlawful government propaganda — will not be resolved until after Tuesday's elections, even though the ads themselves were designed to shape voters' views of the president's party beforehand. The DNC's suit, filed separately in Washington on similar grounds, and the Wisconsin Democratic Party's complaint remain pending in their own courts, and lawyers on both sides say further rulings are likely as the broader case over the $20 million campaign continues.