Washington DC - President Donald Trump on Monday said he will use his own money to pay for political ads ahead of November's midterm elections, a stunning reversal after facing backlash for previously using taxpayer money.
"The Radical Left is upset with the fact that I am taking Ads, which I consider to be a positive promotion for our Great USA, and paying for them with USA money," Trump rambled in a lengthy post to Truth Social on Monday night.
"This is a rather standard thing to do but, rather than doing that, although nothing will make them happy, I have decided to do the Patriotic Ads, among others, and pay for them myself, and with money I raised for MAGA, Inc.," he said.
Trump's decision comes after he and the White House has come under criticism for using public funds to pay for political advertisements touting the administration's purported successes.
Amid the criticism – which has come from both the Democrats and the Republicans – White House officials have vigorously come to Trump's defense.
The first such ad, broadcast in late September, features a song saying "Love Me" while Trump proclaims: "America will never be a communist country."
Another one shows Trump warning of a "final battle" over black-and-white footage of him walking down a hallway, with an onscreen message saying: "Paid for by the US Government."
"You can't spend public money to promote yourself," Republican Senator John Kennedy said about the ads, slamming the administration's use of public funds for a partisan political advertisement.
Democratic Senator John Hickenlooper slammed the ads on X, writing: "This is propaganda. This is illegal. This is un-American."