The White House recycled material from President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign for a new taxpayer-funded ad that aired nationwide this past weekend, just weeks before the high-stakes November midterms.

The 30-second black-and-white ad features Trump walking down a hallway to audio of him vowing to “demolish the deep state” and “expel the warmongers from our government,” even as the president wages an illegal and deeply unpopular war on Iran that has killed thousands and driven up prices at home and around the world. During the final 10 seconds of the ad, white text appears at the bottom of the screen stating, “Paid for by the US government.”

The ad is just the latest taxpayer-funded, explicitly pro-Trump spot that the White House has launched in recent days, prompting alarm from lawmakers and government watchdog organizations who say the administration is using public funds to flood airwaves with the president’s campaign ads shortly before an election.

Watch the newly aired ad:

The U.S. Government is up on TV with this spot —

It aired nationally on FOX yesterday during Illinois at #7 Ohio State and also during Fox News Sunday this morning pic.twitter.com/8PP9FPzUZk

— Medium Buying (@MediumBuying) September 27, 2026

Richard Painter, who served as the White House’s chief ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration, said the taxpayer-funded campaign ads “could be an impeachable offense,” noting that “Congress has expressly prohibited government-sponsored political propaganda, which is dangerous for democracy.”

The federal government appears to have spent more than $1 million on pro-Trump ads in recent days, The New York Times reported on Sunday, citing an estimate from AdImpact.

Last week, as Common Dreams reported, the White House launched a taxpayer-funded ad in which Trump declares that “America will never be a communist country” and promotes tax cuts he signed into law, delivering a massive windfall to the rich and large corporations.

Norm Eisen, former White House special counsel for ethics and government reform, told the Times on Sunday that “the president and his administration have gone from breaking the law to trampling it.”

“The prior ad was bad enough,” said Eisen, “but this one openly repurposes prior political conduct.”

US Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) wrote on social media that Republicans shouldn’t be taken seriously when they claim to care about “waste, fraud, and abuse” as the president and leader of their party runs campaign ads with taxpayer money.

“What a cult this party has become,” Murphy added.

A massive backlog of voter registration applications in Texas could affect the outcome of local and state elections, including a contentious election involving a U.S. Senate seat.

Public officials in the Republican-controlled state have not yet acknowledged what the error actually is. It’s also possible that the error could have affected elections from before the primary elections in March 2026, officials have acknowledged.

“Texas county voter registrars across the state have received a flood of new voter registrations and updates to voter registration records submitted through the Texas Department of Public Safety,” said Chris McGinn, executive director of the Texas Association of County Election Officials. “Some of these submissions date as far back as October 2025.”

It’s unclear how many voters could be affected by the error. McGinn acknowledged that “counties have received anywhere from several hundred to tens of thousands of records to process.” In Bexar County alone, around 45,000 registrations that have been submitted have not yet been processed.

All 254 counties in the state appear to be affected. The Texas Secretary of State’s office alerted all counties to the issue in an email last week, writing:

Counties have alerted us to the fact that some older [Department of Public Safety] registrations are now appearing on their dashboard. We are actively investigating this issue to determine the source of these historical records.

The situation is dire, as the registration deadline for Texan voters for the upcoming general election is October 5. County officials have until October 19 to process registrations, which is the same date that early voting begins.

James Talarico, a Democrat and state representative who is running in the Senate election against State Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), called the situation “unacceptable,” and encouraged all voters to check their registration status.

“Less than two weeks before the voter registration deadline, thousands of Texans are now in the dark about their voter registration status — even more aren’t aware of this error at all,” Talarico said in a statement. “This is what a broken, corrupt political system looks like: Texans follow the rules, register to vote before the deadline, and still risk losing their God-given right to the ballot box because their government failed to do its job.”

The Senate race between Talarico and Paxton is a close one, and even a small error that goes unaddressed before the November election could affect the outcome.

A longtime Republican stronghold, Talarico is currently ahead in the polls with a slim lead against Paxton. According to an average of surveys collected by the polling aggregate site FiftyPlusOne, Talarico secures around 47.9 percent of the vote, while Paxton receives around 44.6 percent.

The US Supreme Court on Monday night rejected a bid by the Trump administration to keep onerous US Postal Service rules for mail-in ballots in place, which voting-rights defenders said risked depriving millions of people of the franchise in this year’s midterm elections.

After a back-and-forth legal battle over the USPS rules that dragged on for months, the nation’s highest court issued the 7-2 ruling without elaborating on its legal reasoning, though right-wing Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas issued dissents in favor of President Donald Trump’s side.

The ruling in USPS v. California was in response to a legal challenge brought by the League of Women’s Voters, the attorneys general of numerous states, and others who argued that newly-announced rules by the Postal Service regarding mail-in ballots, changes prompted by an executive order issued by Trump, would prevent people from having their ballots counted and cause chaos for those trying to administer this year’s elections.

A victory for democracy, a defeat for election deniers. https://t.co/MKjfKmgyTv

— David Crowley (@DavidCCrowley) September 15, 2026

In response to the ruling, the plaintiffs’ legal team said the decision was “a critical step to ensuring free and fair elections this November by maintaining access to mail voting for millions of eligible voters across the United States and lifting the dire threat that the Postal Service would disenfranchise them.”

“Mail voting is safe, secure, and reliable—and the Trump administration has presented no evidence to the contrary, as the courts have repeatedly recognized,” the statement continued. “We will remain vigilant in countering threats to free and fair elections and ensuring that every eligible voter is able to cast a ballot and have it count.”

“Today’s decision is a victory for our democracy and a powerful affirmation of the rule of law,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta in a statement. “The stakes in this litigation could not have been higher.”

Virginia Kase Solomón, president and CEO of Common Cause, was among the other pro-democracy advocates who welcomed the decision.

“Today’s decision is a major win for the millions of everyday Americans who count on vote-by-mail—our seniors, service members, busy parents, rural voters, and voters with disabilities,” said Solomón in a statement. “Vote-by-mail is safe, proven, and vital; even the president uses it. This executive order was a blatant power grab designed to silence voters and undermine our elections, but it failed because the people and the law were on our side. Our Constitution is clear: states run our elections, and voters choose their leaders—not the other way around. No administration can strip the people of their power.”

Michael McNulty, senior policy director for Issue One, a nonpartisan group that works to defend free and fair elections, also welcomed the ruling, but said vigilance would still be necessary going forward.

“The fight to preserve states’ authority to administer elections is far from over,” warned McNulty.

“President Trump continuously and falsely claims fraud in mail-in voting without evidence,” he added. “Despite voting multiple times with this method, he remains obsessed with centralizing control over elections to tilt the playing field. However, for now, one piece of that centralization effort is blocked, and it ensures that mail-in voting for the midterms won’t be disrupted.”

Democratic leaders and a “pro-voter” coalition on Tuesday announced separate actions to combat President Donald Trump’s attack on voting by mail after the US Supreme Court’s right-wing majority delivered a “painful setback” for critics who argue the Republican’s executive order is unconstitutional.

The president’s March order directed the US Department of Homeland Security to compile lists of citizens eligible to vote, states to provide voter information to the federal government, and the United States Postal Service to craft new regulations for absentee ballots—for which the USPS published a final rule last Friday, less than three months away from the midterm elections.

The nation’s top court said in a 6-3 decision on Monday that Democrat-led states had not demonstrated sufficient standing to challenge the president’s order and paused a lower court injunction blocking its implementation. The attorneys general in that case, Trump v. California, vowed to keep fighting back, and as of Tuesday evening, others already are.

The chairs of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Democratic Governors Association, US Senate and House minority leaders, and heads of the party’s campaign committee for each chamber of Congress on Tuesday announced the filing of a new motion for a preliminary injunction.

“Today, we are taking strong, joint legal action to stop Trump’s unlawful attempt to restrict mail-in voting through the Postal Service,” said DNC Chair Ken Martin, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Sen. Chuck Schumer (NY), Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (NY), Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), and Rep. Suzan DelBene (Wash.) in a joint statement.

“Yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling did not say that Trump’s executive order attacking voting rights is constitutional,” they stressed. Rather than ruling on the merits of the challenge, the majority of justices simply said that the states had sued prematurely, as federal efforts to respond to Trump’s order were still underway.

“But the law is clear: States have the authority to run elections—not the president,” the Democrats said. “”We will not stand by while Trump and Republicans try to unnecessarily inject chaos and confusion into our elections, just weeks before voting begins. We are asking a district court to immediately stop the Trump administration from unlawfully disrupting mail-in voting in every state. Democrats will continue fighting every day until Trump’s illegal executive order, and all of his other attempts to undermine our free and fair elections, are completely thrown out.“

The Campaign Legal Center (CLC) and Democracy Defenders Fund (DDF) also continued their battle against the order, filing a new complaint on behalf of the Arizona Students’ Association, League of United Latin American Citizens, Secure Families Initiative, Texas’ Travis County, and the city of Madison, Wisconsin.

BREAKING: we just filed to STOP the new USPS rule on mail ballots

The Court only held that the injunction came too early. Now we HAVE a final rule & we are litigating it@DDFund_ & @CampaignLegal are proud to represent LULAC, Madison WI & Travis County TX pic.twitter.com/e7MTj66U0W

— Norm Eisen (@NormEisen) August 25, 2026

“Key provisions of the president’s second executive order on elections have already been declared unlawful in multiple federal cases,” said Anna Baldwin, CLC’s director of voting rights litigation. “But the US Supreme Court’s recent lawless order on the shadow docket has given USPS the green light to attempt to implement their new mail voting rules—mere weeks before mail ballots start to be sent out in some parts of the country.”

“But nothing in the Supreme Court’s procedural order suggests that the rules are lawful,” Baldwin emphasized. “We will not let the president’s dangerous anti-voter agenda go unchecked, so we’re filing a new complaint challenging USPS’ unconstitutional new rulemaking to ensure all voters can cast their ballot in November.”

Ripping Trump’s order as a “reckless power grab that would likely result in mass confusion, chaos, and disenfranchisement of eligible absentee voters,” DDF legal director Tianna Mays said that “this rule not only places ordinary Postal Service employees in the untenable position of determining whether eligible voters may receive and cast mail ballots, it wreaks havoc on state and local election officials and civic engagement groups.”

“If not stopped,” Mays warned, “our clients, voter advocacy groups, and local election officials in two states would be tasked with deciphering, implementing, and educating their staff and members about the rule’s requirements, just weeks before Election Day.”

Separately on Tuesday, Massachusetts-based US District Judge Indira Talwani found that the Trump administration violated her injunction by finalizing the rule published last week by the Postal Service, though she declined to take any action over it.

The group behind that case, the League of Women Voters Massachusetts, also pledged to keep fighting Trump’s efforts to restrict voting by mail—despite repeatedly voting that way himself—after the Supreme Court’s interim ruling on Monday.

A right-wing talk show host on Tuesday pushed President Donald Trump to declare a “national security emergency” that would let him meddle in the 2026 midterm elections—and the president did not rule it out.

In an appearance on Real America’s Voice, Trump listened as host Wayne Allyn Root rattled off actions he would like to see the president take ahead of the midterms.

“Let me put an idea in your head,” Root told Trump. “Because it’s so hard to get the Senate to do anything, now they’re on recess, they never get anything done. If they never get the SAVE America Act done, you have the right to declare a national security emergency for elections.”

🚨🚨🚨

WAYNE ALLYN ROOT: You have the right to declare a national security emergency for elections. If you do this in the next month, we will get photo ID, proof of citizenship, and a limit to mail ballots

TRUMP: Let me just say stranger things have happened. I'll leave it at… pic.twitter.com/SvXYoYI0lQ

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 11, 2026

Root then told the president that “if you do this in the next month” it would allow for the implementation of photo identification and proof of citizenship requirements, as well as restrictions on mail-in ballots.

“Let me just say that stranger things have happened,” Trump said in response. “I’ll leave it at that.”

The US Constitution does not give the president power to declare a “national emergency” that would allow him to unilaterally rewrite states’ election laws.

Regardless, ABC News reported in February that a group of pro-Trump attorneys were circulating a 17-page draft order that would use the purported threat of election interference from the Chinese government to declare a “national emergency” that would outright ban mail-in ballots and mandate that all ballots be hand-counted.

Trump has not yet signed such an order, but he has issued other election-related directives, including one that instructs the United States Postal Service (USPS) to not deliver ballots in any states that have not given the federal government access to their voter lists.

The USPS executive order and an order that required Americans to show proof of citizenship when registering to vote have been blocked by courts.

Regardless, some observers expressed concern that the president wasn’t yet finished in his efforts to meddle in the coming elections.

“There is zero reason,” wrote CNN host Jake Tapper, “to not take Trump at his word that he and his team are planning something alarming to disrupt the midterms and beyond.”

Criminal defense attorney Scott Greenfield observed in response to the president’s appearance on Real America’s Voice that “Trump has no legal authority to do this,” but warned “that doesn’t mean he won’t try.”

Journalist Mike Rothschild questioned what the conversation between Trump and Root said about both men’s mental stability.

“Once again, Donald Trump is not a wizard,” wrote Rothschild. “He can’t just manifest things into existence by saying them or with a tweet. There is no ‘right’ to do this in US law, nor is there any mechanism that would enable any of this to happen. Both people in this conversation are deranged.”

After losing the 2020 presidential election to former President Joe Biden, Trump refused to concede the race, lied about the election being “stolen” by nefarious actors, pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overtake Biden in the Peach State, and pushed then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject certifying the election despite lacking constitutional authority to do so.

When these efforts to overturn the election failed, Trump encouraged his followers to march to the US Capitol, where they broke into the building, assaulted law enforcement officers, and sent members of Congress running for their lives.