Republicans want to air their TV ads for less, and they have the Trump administration’s support in asking the Supreme Court to allow it.
CNN reports that Republican campaign groups made an emergency appeal to the high court Monday to be able to air their television ads at a discounted rate, citing a Federal Communications Commission ruling earlier this year that political parties and associated entities are allowed to purchase ads at lower rates, just like politicians themselves can under federal law.
The rule change is arguably more beneficial to Republicans, who raise significant amounts through party committees, whereas Democrats typically raise funds through candidates themselves. Last week, though, a three-judge panel on the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that federal law only allows discounted ad buys for candidates, not for organizations and parties.
“The term ‘candidate’ means ‘candidate,’” U.S. Circuit Judge Robert King, a Clinton appointee, wrote in his ruling. The decision came in response to a lawsuit from four Democrats running for office this year: Representative Kristen McDonald Rivet of Michigan, former Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia, and former Governor Roy Cooper of North Carolina.
In response, House and Senate Republican Party committees appealed to the Supreme Court, saying that they had “budgeted tens of millions of dollars in ad buys” under the FCC rule change, but because of the federal court ruling, “broadcast stations are already rescinding those rates.” The Trump administration quickly supported their appeal.
“The notice does not grant favored treatment to one side or the other; instead, the notice’s interpretation offers the same benefit to all sides, including the challengers themselves and the committees and parties supporting them,” said Solicitor General D. John Sauer on behalf of the White House to the Supreme Court.
With the midterms just two months away, the high court is expected to rule quickly. In the likely event that the Supreme Court’s conservative majority sides with the Republicans, voters are likely to see an even greater flood of pro-Trump ads between now and November.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s so-called “major fraud announcement” was just another lame attack on immigrants that won’t make roads any safer.
Speaking at a press conference Monday, the two officials declared the emergency shutdown of 110 commercial driver’s license, or CDL, schools, claiming they were responsible for 5,000 violations of federal safety standards requiring licensees to demonstrate English proficiency. “If you’re an illegal trucker, this is your worst nightmare,” Duffy wrote in a post on X Monday.
It didn’t take long for journalists at the event to pull apart the preposterous announcement.
One reporter pointed out that foreign-born drivers holding non-domiciled CDLs were responsible for just 17 fatal crashes in 2025. “The slant here has been strongly about illegals, foreign drivers, but yet it accounts, according to U.S. [Department of Transportation] stats I see, for one percent of the issue,” one reporter said.
Duffy pretended that the move had little to do with undocumented immigrants.
Sean Duffy gets brutally fact-checked by a reporter, immediately changes topic pic.twitter.com/iExWbc6OyM
“You could have migrated to this country, you could have done it legally, but if you don’t speak English, you’re still violating our long-standing safety rules that you have to speak English,” Duffy said. “So this is not just about people who have come into the country illegally.”
Numbers from previous years suggest that licensing status, rather than immigration status or national origin, is the more relevant factor in deadly crashes. In fatal large truck crashes in 2021, 22.5 percent of drivers reportedly had no CDL at all. So the secretary’s decision to shutter schools, undermining access to essential safety training, has the potential to make roadways more dangerous.
