The White House has released a third taxpayer-funded ad touting President Donald Trump and his agenda ahead of the November elections, drawing warnings from Democrats and ethics experts that the spots may violate a federal ban on propaganda paid for by taxpayers.

The administration defends the commercials as public service announcements.

The new ad released by the Trump administration is strikingly similar to a campaign ad Trump posted to social media in early 2024 while he was running for president.

“This is the final battle. With you by my side, we will demolish the deep state. We will expel the warmongers from our government, and we will drive out the globalists,” Trump says in part in the ad. 

The chief differences between the two ads are fine print at the bottom of the new ad saying it was paid for by the U.S. government and that the new ad ends before the 2024 campaign logo appears.

The commercial aired repeatedly over the weekend, including during “Saturday Night Live” and NFL games, according to the tracking firm AdImpact.

The administration released two other political-style ads last week. One played the song “Love Me” as the president’s face flashed on screen.

The ads are alarming ethics experts such as Richard Painter, who served as chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush.

Painter pointed to language included in congressional appropriations bills for decades saying no funding should be used for “publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States.”

“These ads are propaganda," Painter said. " ... These ads could be paid for by the Republican Party, and there’d be nothing wrong with them. But they cannot be paid for by the American taxpayer.”

The administration rejected that criticism. In a White House statement, it said “the announcements are very clearly not campaign ads. President Trump is not on the ballot and there is no call to action.”

White House communications director Steven Cheung wrote Sunday, “Don’t let the Fake News get away with their lies about our epic Public Service Announcements that have been running on tv…”

The ads have also drawn bipartisan criticism.

The top Democrats on the House and Senate Appropriations committees wrote to the White House chief of staff: “This is the sort of government propaganda one might expect in North Korea, not the United States of America, and it is an egregious and illegal misuse of Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars.”

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., called at least one of the ads “inappropriate.”

According to AdImpact, more than $300,000 has already been spent broadcasting the new ad.