Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a former Donald Trump administration official, is facing criticism over a new campaign advertisement that portrays a young white man as the face of welfare dependency.
Sanders, who is seeking reelection, released the video this week as she introduced a new welfare-to-work requirement in the state.
The commercial focuses on Brad, a young white man shown spending his days on a sofa playing video games.
“Meet Brad. Brad has turned relaxing into a full-time profession,” Sanders says in the advertisement.
“But you? You actually work hard. You pay taxes to cover welfare for guys like Brad who just choose not to work.”
The governor adds: “That’s why I launched a welfare-to-work requirement. Now, more Arkansans are working than ever before. Even Brad!”
The ad concludes with Brad wearing a suit and leaving for work. Under the welfare-to-work policy, young, able-bodied recipients of public assistance would have to work, attend school or volunteer to continue receiving their benefits.
The commercial soon came under fire from fellow MAGA supporters, some of whom accused Sanders’ campaign of producing an “anti-white” advertisement.
Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders is facing backlash over a new ad depicting a young white man as the face of welfare
The commercial depicts a young white man named Brad who spends his days on the couch playing video games
“This anti-white ad should be taken down, the comms team fired, and the Governor’s Office issue an apology,” Jack Posobiec, a conservative political activist and close friend of Charlie Kirk, wrote on X.
“We are 35 days out from an election and they are attacking young white men.”
“White males are the Republican Party’s voting base, and yet they are the group the Republican Party s**ts on at every possible opportunity,” Daily Wire commentator Matt Walsh wrote.
“These idiotic cowards don’t even have the guts to criticize groups that will never vote for them anyway. They just never learn.”
Another critic wrote: “This is how Republicans see white men. Quite the message a few weeks from the midterms.”
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“The choice of a white male gamer to be the new ‘welfare queen’ is an amazing sign of the progress we’ve made in this country,” a fourth person wrote.
According to Sanders’ campaign website, the video is the seventh television advertisement of her 2026 general election campaign. It forms part of a six-figure advertising push scheduled to run statewide across television and digital platforms.
Sanders, who previously served as Trump’s press secretary, defended the commercial in a follow-up post on X. “Some critics online don’t like my welfare work requirement ad. Next thing you know they’ll say I should have used cookies instead of cheese balls.”
“If you are able-bodied, you should not collect welfare simply because you choose not to work. Period.”
Welfare is a broad term for public assistance. In Arkansas, the Department of Human Services offers assistance for food, unemployment programs and health insurance to low-income residents.
Data reviewed by The New York Times from the Arkansas Department of Human Services revealed that most people enrolled in the state’s Medicaid expansion are white.
In August, the data showed that over 60 percent of the roughly 218,000 Medicaid expansion enrollees in the state reported being white.
Only 18 percent reported being black, and 16 percent did not report their ethnicity.
Over three-quarters listed their ages as 18 to 49, and 54 percent are women.
The Daily Mail contacted Sanders’ campaign for comment.