Trump pushed for grisly anti-fentanyl ads airing now
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One of the anti-fentanyl ads includes a shadowy image of a young woman expressing regret while EMTs try to revive her character in the background. Image: Make America Fentanyl Free Inc.
President Trump was a key booster of a series of grisly TV ads portraying the dangers of fentanyl — commercials that are now drenching the airwaves in several U.S. cities.
Why it matters: A multimillion-dollar campaign by a Trump-aligned group is running the ads in areas hit hard by the fentanyl epidemic — including West Virginia, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. — and is part of the White House's latest anti-drug push.
- Trump aides say the president wanted hard-edged portrayals of death and addiction that he believes would draw a reaction from viewers.
Zoom in: In one of the ads, an actor depicting a fentanyl user looks in a mirror and details the rapid deterioration of his teeth, skin and hair. "Don't take fentanyl — because if you do, you'll be dead like me," the man says as he fades out.
- Another spot begins with a young woman being stretchered out of a club after taking fentanyl-laced marijuana. It was a "birthday, I'll never forget — because it was my last," she says.
- The same ad portrays a drug dealer giving fentanyl to a man who describes how his "organs painfully deteriorated," before he died "alone."
- It concludes with a pitch for viewers to "join President Trump's fight to end the fentanyl crisis."
The backstory: Trump told his team after the 2024 election that he wanted to develop ads combating the fentanyl crisis.
- A person involved in the effort told Axios that Trump wanted the ads to be visceral, as opposed to a lower-key "PSA."
- "One thing he intuitively understands is that people see a lot of ads, but that it has to stand out," the source said.
Trump previewed final versions of the ads early this month and signaled his approval for ads by Make America Fentanyl Free, the Trump-aligned group.
- An inspiration for the ads appears to have been an anti-fentanyl campaign run by Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. Trump privately has complimented Sheinbaum's effort.
- Key members of the president's political team — including Chris LaCivita, John Brabender and Danielle Alvarez — are involved in the advertising campaign.
Zoom out: Trump cares deeply about TV advertising — and often wants to push the envelope.
- During the 2016 campaign, he urged his team to create a spot that called former New York Rep. Anthony Weiner, a convicted sex offender, a "pervert."
- Trump helped create commercials for his own presidential campaign last year and had strong opinions on which pro-Trump outside groups were running "good ads, and which were running bad ads," a longtime adviser said.
Trump's obsession with TV production goes back to his days as a New York real estate developer, and when he hosted NBC's "The Apprentice" starting two decades ago.
- He's an obsessive watcher of cable news and has staffed his administration with Fox News veterans, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Chief of Protocol Monica Crowley, and Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for D.C. He has nominated Kimberly Guilfoyle to be ambassador to Greece.
- Onetime Fox News executive Bill Shine was a top White House communications official during Trump's first term.
By the numbers: Make America Fentanyl Free has spent more than $2.6 million to run ads on national cable outlets.
- It also has spent more than $360,000 for ad buys on broadcast stations in Atlanta and D.C., more than $340,000 in Detroit, nearly $340,000 in Philadelphia and nearly than $80,000 in West Virginia.
- The groups also is investing heavily in digital and streaming ads to reach young people, and is planning more commercials.
The intrigue: As a non-profit policy group, Make America Fentanyl Free raises "dark money" — funds from donors who remain anonymous.
- Trump has been boosted by several other dark money groups that have spent millions of dollars promoting his agenda and helping him counter criticism.
- The groups operate independently from Trump's official outside groups, which have raked in hundreds of millions of dollars.
What they're saying: "The president cares very deeply about this issue, and his fight against fentanyl was the galvanizing force in the formation of the organization," said Alvarez, a Make America Fentanyl Free spokesperson.
- "He's offered great advice, including the use of vivid imagery to show Americans exactly how fentanyl destroys lives, families and communities."
