US President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after arriving aboard the Marine One helicopter on his South Lawn helipad at the White House in Washington, D.C., US, October 6, 2026. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
President Donald Trump, faced with intense opposition from his own party, backed off his plan to use taxpayer money stolen from the Department of Homeland Security to fund political public service announcements for his own pet causes.
There's just one problem, former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) told MS NOW's Nicolle Wallace on Tuesday: his new plan to come up with the money privately for these PSAs is still illegal.
"I was trying to think of the other examples where something has been such a stink bomb he reversed course," said Wallace, saying that the main one she can think of is Trump's family separation policy in his first term. "I couldn't think of too many other examples. So what do you think it was that made the pain so great that he retreated? On having the taxpayers pay for his political campaign ads?"
"Heads up, John Thune, heads up, John Kennedy, heads up, Republicans," said McCaskill. "It matters when you speak out, when you speak out and say it's wrong, it has an impact. These guys have operated for a decade, these Republican officeholders, as if they have no power to change course, that they don't have anything in them that would allow a different kind of leadership to take hold. And they do. This is a great example."
That being said, McCaskill added, Trump now plans to pay for these same spots out of his super PAC, MAGA Inc. And that's also illegal, for a completely different reason.
"He's controlling his PAC and that's illegal. You can't do that," said McCaskill. "As somebody who has a separate PAC, under the law is very important that you cannot direct what they do. So even though he's reversed course because a few republicans finally had enough courage to speak up, he still is in blatant violation of U.S. law, which I guess we've gotten used to, but we shouldn't."