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\n

BETHLEHEM, Pennsylvania \u2014 Speaker Mike Johnson defended President Donald Trump\u2019s use of taxpayer funded political-themed ads ahead of the election, but he said it was \u201cgood\u201d that MAGA Inc. would pay for them going forward.<\/p>\n

Johnson said Tuesday that he\u2019s only seen one of the Trump ads and that it \u201clooked like a public service announcement.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was talking about America’s greatness and the economy coming back, and it wasn’t a plea to vote for anybody. It was just \u2014 it was pro Americana,\u201d Johnson told Blue Light News during a campaign stop in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

But he added: \u201cIf the Super PAC’s funding them, that’s good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump said Monday that he or his aligned super PAC would pay<\/a> for the series of taxpayer-funded ads featuring him in the final few weeks of the midterms. His decision came after bipartisan backlash, including from some GOP candidates like Brinker Harding in Nebraska\u2019s 2nd District publicly broke with the president and said they shouldn\u2019t be paid for with taxpayer money.<\/p>\n

Still, asked if Trump should refund taxpayers the money already spent on the ads, Johnson demurred. He said previous Democratic administrations have run PSAs as well, though Democrats argue these ads violate federal laws against using taxpayer money for “publicity or propaganda purposes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, they’re making their decisions on funding campaigns and the content of all of it,\u201d Johnson said of the president\u2019s team.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m going to tell you the president is deeply vested,\u201d Johnson added, noting Trump was out on the campaign trail for Republicans.<\/p>\n

Johnson spoke alongside Rep. Ryan Mackenzie (R-Pa.) during a law enforcement event in the perennial bellwether of Pennsylvania\u2019s 7th District. He called Mackenzie\u2019s race one of the \u201ctop three in the country\u201d and warned it would be \u201cenormously expensive.\u201d<\/p>\n

He later argued that Democrats, if they win the House majority, would roll back GOP work on the economy and \u201cempower our enemies around the world at the worst possible time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat would roil the markets \u2026 if Democrats turned Congress into lawfare on steroids,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania is the first of seven states that Johnson plans to visit this week as he continues his midterm campaign blitz.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BETHLEHEM, Pennsylvania \u2014 Speaker Mike Johnson defended President Donald Trump\u2019s use of taxpayer funded political-themed ads ahead of the election, but he said it was \u201cgood\u201d that MAGA Inc. would pay for them going forward. Johnson said Tuesday that he\u2019s only seen one of the Trump ads and that it \u201clooked like a public service […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27426\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}