Transcript of Dan Freeman discusses DNC lawsuit against Trump New

Finally, it's here. I think this is what people wanted to see, the DNC filing a major lawsuit against Donald Trump, the White House Office, the Office of Management and Budget, for those propaganda ads that the Trump regime is running. They've been running them during football games and other major events. And if you go through this lawsuit, you learn that the Trump regime budgeted about $20 million unlawfully to air these Trump propaganda ads. There's different ones that are talked about in this lawsuit that was filed. There's one that's called like Love Me. There's the Maduro ad. There's a bunch of other deranged ads that they are playing. But the Trump regime appears to have unlawfully taken money that was appropriated. And this is what makes it even more horrific for these kind of commemorative events, including honorifics for fallen soldiers. So the appropriate kind of pomp and circumstance and the kind of somber ceremonies for fallen soldiers and fallen military members, that was part of a budget that appears to have been raided and diverted for these kind of Trump propaganda ads. The lawsuit talks about how in the 2026 appropriations bill, there was a rider that pretty much is in every appropriations rider that specifically bans the use of funds for these types of politicized propaganda purposes.

It's quite literally in there. But Donald Trump ordered Russ Vought, one of the architects of Project 2025, damn those torpedoes, or I should say, damn the law, full speed ahead. We talked about earlier today some of the polling around these Trump ads. They're so deeply unpopular. That seems to be one of the reasons why the Trump regime says, oh, actually, we may not be running him anymore. I think it was somewhere in the range of 90% of the American people oppose these ads and believe that this is unlawful and the Trump regime should not be doing it. So Donald Trump, surprise, surprise, lied. And he posted, all right, we're not going to be doing it anymore. I will use my PAC money, the political action committee where he's raised over like $400 million sending grandma and grandpa messages like, do you miss me? I need you. Just click this $5. And then you look at it, you're like, oh, $5,000 recurring donations, recurring donations, which he wasn't using for this. But anyway, he was spending, you know, taxpayer money on this. He claimed that he was going to stop doing it and that he would be shifting to the PAC.

But he kept on running the ads over and over and over again. And at least as of this recording, there's not necessarily any sign that he's stopping, that he, you know, he continues to run it. And it appears they gave $20 million to these ad companies to place the ads, that a lot of these ads have been placed. And so when Trump's saying, oh, I'm not going to do it anymore, What appears to be what that means is at least they're going to keep on running the $20 million that they've committed from the taxpayers, and he's just going to post and say, I'm not doing it anymore while still doing it. So this lawsuit is seeking injunctive relief. It's seeking other remedies under the Administrative Procedures Act, ultra vires cause of actions and others, basically saying we have to stop this right now, block this because it is unlawful, it is unconstitutional. It is against the Administrative Procedures Act. It's against every law. And he— it's not a moot issue because it's still being run. We're still seeing these ads run. So I want to bring in Dan Freeman. Dan is the litigation chair over at the DNC.

Previously, you were at the Justice Department before getting one of those DOJ letters saying, see you later. And you were part of that wave of career people who were working head down, doing great work, and they fired you or forced you— whatever you want to describe it— fired you from the Trump regime. You're now leading as the litigation chair of the DNC. And I think this is the type of lawsuit when I speak to people and people are like, what does the DNC do or what can they do or what's happening? Like, to me, this is something I heard today where people were like, This is what we want you to do. Like, you're not going to be doing deals with the Trump regime. We're not like— like, put on— take off the gloves and just start fighting back. And I think this lawsuit is an example of that. So I wanted to highlight and feature that. So, Dan, talk to us about this lawsuit, how important it is, and why was it filed today and how timely it is? Sure.

So this lawsuit is important because in American elections, the government doesn't get to put a thumb on the scale. And Donald Trump doesn't get to take your tax dollars and mine and spend them on ads about how great he is. He doesn't get to put out recuts of his 2024 campaign ads with taxpayer money. That's just not how we have elections in this country. And so when he said he was going to stop on Monday, we thought, good, okay, we don't need to sue. But we should have never trusted him. And so once there was an ad on national TV again last night, we said, okay, we're going to put our heads down, we're going to crank this thing out, and we're going to sue as fast as we possibly can. And so that's why we filed a lawsuit this afternoon, and that's why we hope to ask a court to block these ads as soon as we possibly can.

And I think one of the important things in this lawsuit, Dan, and we see this over and over again with Donald Trump's litigation behavior, is He'll say, I'm stopping. I'm not going to be doing something. And he keeps on doing it. So here Donald Trump says, all right, I'm going to stop using the taxpayer funds to run these propaganda ads. I will use the MAGA PAC. And that's where I'm going to be funding the future ads from, which he should be doing right away. But then he continued to use the $20 million in taxpayer money and he was drawing down that money. As at least as of the time of you filing this lawsuit, he's still running the unlawful ads with taxpayer money.

Well, I think the second that we saw they were back up on national TV, we got on file as quickly as we could. And so at this point, you know, he spent around $12 million of the $20 million that have been shifted into the account that they're using for these ads. And we're going to try to get this stopped before they use the rest of the $8 million. But also, it's going to make a point that they can't do this again when they run out of the $8 million or in any future election.

So what's the next step, Dan? What happens next?

You know, we're going to get a request for emergency relief on file as soon as we can, as quickly as we can. And then we'll try and get in front of a judge as soon as we can. These things aren't instantaneous, but we're going to push hard and push fast and, and make sure that we get some relief. So that the president stops abusing taxpayer money this way and stops airing propaganda at your and my expense.

You know, one of the things I saw in the lawsuit also that I think we should pay attention to is that Donald Trump is apparently using funds that were appropriated for, like, ceremonies, like including ceremonies for, like, fallen service members and ceremonies honoring our troops. Can you talk about that?

Well, they moved money into that account from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which, you know, can function like a slush fund, and then they are moving it out. But, you know, they, they characterize that money when they moved it as being for commemorations and the like. But the only thing they seem to want to commemorate is how great President Trump is. And that's not what this money is for. Certainly not something that we should be using taxpayer dollars for.

Anything else, Dan, before we go?

Look, I mean, this is really important, not just because of the particular ads or the effect on a particular race. We think these ads are really unpopular and really ineffective, but more importantly, they're offensive. The notion that you would have the president of the United States taking taxpayer money to put out ads, to pump himself up, to try and save himself from how unpopular his policies are as we head into the next election. That's the stuff that dictators do. And so we have to put a stop to it, not just because of this election, but to protect free and fair elections now and into the future. And that's, that's why we moved so fast. And that's why we're going to keep moving until this gets stopped.

Dan Freeman, everyone, litigation head at the DNC. Dan, thanks. We appreciate your time. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to 7 million subscribers. Thanks for watching.

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