White House airs new taxpayer-funded ad praising Trump’s war on Iran

The latest in a series of pro-Trump television ads aired using taxpayer funds in the run-up to the the midterm elections is a one-minute spot that celebrates Donald Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran.

The ad aired during a commercial break on Fox News on Wednesday night, according video posted online by MeidasTouch, a leftwing outlet.

A copy of the new ad posted on social media by Medium Buying, a company that purchases airtime for Republican candidates, features audio taken from the president’s 28 February declaration that the United States military had begun major combat operations in Iran.

“This regime will soon learn that no one should challenge the strength and might of the United States Armed Forces,” Trump can be heard saying over images of combat, some of which appear to be dramatizations or computer-generated. A cover version of John Lee Hooker’s Boom Boom provides the soundtrack.

The audio then switches to comments made by Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, in a briefing on the third day of the war. “He reminded the world, as he has time and time again, being an American means something unbreakable,” Hegseth says over slow-motion images of Trump walking down a corridor.

“If you kill Americans, if you threaten Americans anywhere on Earth, we will hunt you down without apology and without hesitation and we will kill you,” Hegseth says. “We didn’t start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it. Their war on Americans has become our retribution against their ayatollah”.

As the words “Paid for by the US Government” appear at the bottom of the screen, the ad’s audio switches back to Trump’s call for regime change in Iran in his announcement of the war in February.

“To the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump can be heard saying, against a backdrop of dramatic music and images of Iranian Americans in New York celebrating the US strikes on 1 March. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take.”

The images of Iranian Americans demonstrating in support of Trump’s war in New York City, marching down 42nd Street and holding signs that read “Thank you President Trump”, were all previously included in a White House video posted on YouTube on 4 March.

The focus of the ad on speeches and images of celebration that all came in the first three days of the war, when it looked like Iran’s government could collapse, raises questions about why the administration is releasing it as the war enters its seventh month and continues to alienate many of Trump’s supporters.