
The Scoop
Fox News won’t air an ad from a Democratic group that had planned to blast Donald Trump’s federal spending freeze.
Last week, House Majority Forward, a nonprofit group aligned with a top super PAC for House Democrats, announced it was buying advertising space on Fox News to air advertisements hitting the Trump administration over its decision to freeze spending on trillions of federal grants and other programs.
While the White House said the initial freeze was only intended to block spending in certain areas, including efforts to increase diversity within the federal workforce, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trump’s federal funding-related executive orders “remain in full force.” A federal judge in Rhode Island who blocked the administration’s temporary freeze said “the substantive effect of the directive carries on.”
The ad was initially intended to air beginning Monday morning during Fox & Friends. But the network informed HMF that it would not air the ad after the administration backtracked on the policy.
A Fox spokesperson said it decided not to air the ad because the administration pulled the executive order, thereby rendering the claims in the ad moot. Fox vets all ads to ensure that they meet network standards.
Know More
Advertising on Fox News has been a subject of debate among Democrats over the years. Some Democrats believe that even by buying critical ads about their political opponents, they are funding their own opposition by helping pay for Fox News content.
But increasingly, many Democrats feel that it is valuable advertising space in a television viewership landscape that is rapidly shrinking. The main super PAC backing Joe Biden (and later, Kamala Harris) during the 2024 election pumped money into advertising on Fox News. While that wasn’t enough to win the election, it did get the attention of Trump, who called on Fox to stop agreeing to air negative ads during the election. The campaigns also bought ad space on Fox News’ digital website.
The reversal also demonstrated the rapid pace of the Trump news cycle, which Democrats have struggled to keep pace with in recent days.
Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported that Fox initially agreed to air the ad.