ICYMI: Senator Hassan Calls Out Trump’s $20 Million Taxpayer-Funded Propaganda Ads on MS Now

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Ranking Member of the Joint Economic Committee and a senior member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, joined MS Now’s The Weeknight to discuss her investigation into new taxpayer-funded political advertisements promoting President Donald Trump.

The Administration has reportedly already committed $20 million from a U.S. Customs and Border Protection line item designated to commemorate line-of-duty deaths and acts of valor to pay for these ads, according to recent reporting.

Senator Hassan has been scrutinizing Trump’s vanity spending. The Joint Economic Committee – Minority, led by Senator Hassan, recently released a report finding that President Trump’s vanity projects – including construction of the new White House ballroom and the no-bid contract to paint the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pools – are expected to cost more than $1.8 billion. Using this total, the Committee created an Interactive Cost Calculator that allows users to explore how this $1.8 billion could instead be spent to lower costs and help the American people.

Watch Senator Hassan’s MS Now interview here or see below for key moments:

• “[President Trump] is now using, the reporting is, $20 million to promote himself and issue propaganda on this station and many others at a time when Americans can't afford to make ends meet.”

• “When I did an analysis of some of the other vanity projects – the ballroom, the Reflecting Pool, a couple others – it adds up to about $1.8 billion. That would pay for 600 [million] school lunches. That would pay for the electric bills for 12 million Americans for a month, even with the sky-high electricity prices that people are seeing right now.”

• “The First Amendment is something we all respect. And if Donald Trump wants to use his wealth and riches or that of his billionaire buddies to fund this, that is his right. But my constituents know a political ad when they see it. This is a political ad.”

• “The president, by all reporting, is directing a lot of these ads. They're all spending their time on this, rather than an agenda that would lower people's costs and help them afford health care or childcare or groceries or gas. [...] The average household in America has spent $4,200 more on goods and services since Donald Trump became president. They have spent, I think the latest number is around $90 billion more on gasoline since the beginning of the war. [...] this is an administration that has no interest in actually addressing the issues that the American people are facing right now.”

###