Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a retired Navy combat pilot, former astronaut and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, accused President Donald Trump on Tuesday of taking money meant to secure the nation’s borders and spending it on political television ads starring himself. In a post on X, Kelly called the move by its name: corruption. The post came the same day a Wall Street Journal investigation reported that Homeland Security funds paid for the ads, which began airing last week.
What Kelly Said
Kelly posted the statement at 4:21 p.m. on Sept. 29, 2026. His full post read:
“Trump took taxpayer money meant for border security and used it to fund political TV ads of himself just before an election. Let’s call it what it is: corruption.”
Kelly attached the Journal’s report to the post. It states that the Trump administration used federal funds from the Department of Homeland Security to finance a set of pro-Trump advertisements that recently began airing on television, according to people familiar with the matter. The report says the money came from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the DHS arm that oversees the Border Patrol and customs and immigration at airports.
The Ads at the Center of the Controversy
The Journal reported that the ads carry the unusual disclaimer “paid for by the U.S. government,” and that Trump personally pushed for them and has been involved in their creation, according to a person familiar with the matter. One spot, a version of which was posted on the White House YouTube channel, shows dozens of images of Trump at White House events while he declares that “America will never be a communist country” and a choir sings “Love Me.” A second is almost identical to a video Trump promoted during his 2024 campaign, featuring black-and-white footage of him walking as he speaks of “the final battle.” A third shows Mount Rushmore while Trump calls the United States “the most successful, most accomplished, most exceptional nation ever to exist in human history.”
By Sunday evening, the Journal reported, the ads had aired nearly 90 times on national networks including Fox, Newsmax, MS Now and CBS, at an estimated cost of $337,000, according to iSpot.TV. Ad-tracker AdImpact counted 2,311 local airings, backed by an estimated $1.4 million. Estimates have since grown. AdImpact has estimated that the administration has spent more than $1.7 million to run the ads, and its data shows more than $2.5 million was spent on the three ads over the past seven days, with the actual amount possibly higher depending on how networks classified the spots.
Where the Money Came From
The source of the funds drew confirmation from inside Trump’s own party. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, told reporters Tuesday that the money was taken out of funding meant for Customs and Border Protection in the tax and spending law Republicans passed along party lines in 2025. Rep. Rosa DeLauro’s office, speaking for Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee, said in a press release that the administration used funding allocated for CBP in the “One Big Beautiful Bill” to pay for the ads.
In a letter Tuesday to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), the top Democratic appropriators, wrote that using government funding to air such ads “is illegal and a shockingly corrupt misuse of taxpayer dollars.” According to the Journal, they wrote that DHS appeared to have dedicated $20 million to the ads, drawn from funds that Republicans’ 2025 legislation had provided to CBP “for commemorative events relating to border security.” They demanded that the ads come off the air immediately and asked DHS whether any legal opinion had signed off on the funding.
The White House has referred to the ads as public-service announcements. “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,” it said in a statement, calling the ads “educational and unapologetically patriotic.” DHS declined to comment and pointed to the White House statement. The administration has defended the use of taxpayer dollars for the ads and shown no signs of changing course.
Legal Questions and a Precedent
Critics say the ads may violate laws including the Hatch Act, which bars executive-branch employees from using their jobs to promote political causes. Democracy Forward, a legal nonprofit that has sued the administration before, said it has filed public-records requests about the ads. Its chief executive, Skye Perryman, said they raise questions about whether the administration treated public funds as a “personal political war chest.” Gil Kerlikowske, who led Customs and Border Protection under President Barack Obama, told the Journal that using the agency’s funds for ads of this kind is “totally unprecedented.”
The episode follows an earlier DHS advertising controversy. The Journal noted that DHS previously drew scrutiny for a campaign of more than $200 million promoting then-Secretary Kristi Noem, and that the backlash contributed to her ouster after she suggested during congressional testimony that Trump had approved it. Those remarks angered Trump and sped up the timeline for her firing, according to the Journal.
Republicans Push Back
The criticism has not been limited to Democrats. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told reporters Monday that it is “a great message,” but “it shouldn’t be paid for with taxpayer dollars”. Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, compared Trump’s ads to those used by Hungary’s authoritarian former leader Viktor Orbán. The Hill reported that GOP senators are pushing back and warning the president against using taxpayer money for the spots.
Kelly’s Record on Corruption and Taxpayer Money
Kelly’s post fits a pattern in his public statements. At a June press conference with Sens. Adam Schiff and Elissa Slotkin on legislation to shut down what they call a Justice Department “slush fund,” Kelly said families struggling with groceries, housing and health care should not have to foot the bill for Trump’s $1.8 billion fund, and called it “corruption in broad daylight.”
In an August appearance on CNN, Kelly said the corruption the administration is participating in is “unprecedented,” and that Trump spends little time improving people’s lives. He argued that the president should have placed his assets in a blind trust, as Kelly did after entering the Senate. In a May interview on PBS, Kelly said officials must be held accountable and that “there needs to be investigations for the most serious stuff.”
A Senator Who Has Clashed With the White House Before
Kelly has been a central figure in confrontations between Trump and military-veteran lawmakers. At a December 2025 press conference, he said Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth were trying to intimidate him, and contrasted his record with Trump’s: in 1991, as Trump was driving the Taj Mahal Casino into bankruptcy, Kelly said he was “getting shot at over Iraq and Kuwait.” In February, he and Slotkin held a press conference over reports that the Justice Department had tried and failed to secure a grand jury indictment against them, which Kelly called “the master alarm flashing for our democracy.”
Midterm Stakes
The ads are running as the midterm elections approach on Nov. 3, with Republican control of both chambers and Trump’s future agenda at risk. Polymarket’s House market showed Democrats at a 93% chance of winning the chamber as of Tuesday. Prediction-market odds are a measure of trader sentiment, not an official forecast.
The Journal noted that Fox Corp. and its own parent company, News Corp, share common ownership. As of Tuesday evening, the White House had not indicated any plan to pull the ads, and Murray and Murphy’s questions to DHS remained unanswered.