ADRIAN MA, HOST:
In recent days, you've probably heard ads like these.
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UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR #1: You voted for it. You got it. America is booming.
UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR #2: Only President Trump can fix it. He'll ignite a golden age of innovation to defeat cancer once and for all.
UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR #3: President Trump is fixing it. Trump's plan? Middle-class tax cuts, job-creating tax cuts, tariffs that bring home American jobs.
MA: This is just a sample of political ads blanketing the airwaves and other platforms right now, and these ads are all praising President Trump. And this is a little odd because it's not a major election year. President Trump is not running for reelection, and Republicans have a trifecta government in Washington. So what gives with the campaign-style ads? Joining us to try and unravel this is NPR senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro. Hey, Domenico.
DOMENICO MONTANARO, BYLINE: Hey, Adrian. Great to be with you.
MA: Just to kick us off, how common are political ads in nonelection years?
MONTANARO: Well, I mean, first, it's not uncommon for a president's allies or the party apparatuses - think like the Democratic National Committee or the Republican National Committee - to run ads pushing for outside support for a political initiative, a major piece of legislation. And we've seen pro-Trump groups on the air doing exactly that - boosting his tax and spending bill, for example - but nothing quite to this level of spending or these ads thanking him. We haven't really seen that much of this from other administrations in the past.
MA: OK, so say more about that.
MONTANARO: Yeah. Well, I had our friends at the ad-tracking firm AdImpact run the numbers. I asked them to compare the first six months of this second Trump presidency to Biden's presidency in 2021. So we looked at the first six months and found that about $8 million was spent on generally positive ads about Biden. Now, that's not nothing, right?
MA: No.
MONTANARO: But Trump and his allies have spent tens of millions of dollars - more than 10 times more, actually.
MA: OK, so 10 times more is a big difference.
MONTANARO: Yeah.
MA: So again, like, why is this happening in a nonelection year? Like, what is the point here?
MONTANARO: Yeah, there's no presidential election. Midterms are next year. And Trump has said he's not running in 2028, which he's constitutionally barred from doing. Part of this is trying to keep his approval ratings up, particularly with his base, and keep them involved. That can serve to keep his political capital up for other things he might try to get through Congress - even controversial things he might try to do independent of Congress, like the kinds of mass deportations that we've seen. Here's Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem lauding Trump in an ad that DHS paid for.
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KRISTI NOEM: Thank you, President Donald J. Trump, for securing our border, for deporting criminal, illegal immigrants and for putting America first.
MONTANARO: In fact, we know that it's not just criminals being rounded up. But that's one thing a multimillion-dollar ad campaign can try and do - frame the narrative and push the message that the administration wants.
MA: I mean, it's not every day that you see a cabinet secretary in an ad promoting the president. I'm sure the president himself doesn't mind this.
MONTANARO: Yeah, no. It's very unusual to see a cabinet secretary doing this. Trump, I'm sure, enjoys seeing that people are doing this on his behalf. And that's the other thing an ad campaign can do - target a specific audience, and sometimes that audience is as specific as an audience of one. Here's one from the Republican Jewish Coalition thanking Trump for bombing Iran because of some of the things it says Iran wants to do.
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UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR #4: Destruction of Israel. Terror. Only President Trump had the courage to stop them. President Trump - peacemaker.
MONTANARO: He's certainly going to like being referred to as a peacemaker there. And here's another from Americans for Prosperity, the Koch brothers-tied group. It congratulates Trump on the passage of his tax and spending bill and makes sure to highlight that they were a big part of the bill getting passed.
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UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR #5: Americans for Prosperity, the voice of everyday Americans, is proud to have helped make it happen with over 1,500 meetings on Capitol Hill, 500,000 doors knocked nationwide.
MONTANARO: Well, some context here is that AFP has not always been a group that's been on Trump's good side, so this is one way to try and do that. Some groups, by the way, are also spending specifically on West Palm Beach in Florida. That, of course, is where Trump lives when he's not at the White House, and that's certainly one way to get Trump to notice you.
MA: So what does all this tell us about what Trump values and what other groups think he wants to see?
MONTANARO: Yeah, that's a key point because optics, the PR - public relations - have always been paramount for Trump. One Republican strategist told me that the ad efforts are, quote, "one part flattery, one part publicly communicating the political incentives of Trump's support to voters. It's also a reflection of just how important Trump views the PR value of every action." Another echoed that saying, quote, "the hope is that by thanking President Trump, your organization puts down a public marker of support that could conceptually benefit you either immediately or down the road." Translation here - he said it truly is the old idea that flattery will get you everywhere.
MA: That is the world's greatest senior political editor and correspondent, Domenico Montanaro.
MONTANARO: Thank you, Adrian. It's always the best to be on with you.
MA: (Laughter). Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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