After spending the day golfing while his allies downplayed and mocked millions of Americans marching against his administration, Donald Trump fired off a Truth Social post with an AI-created video showing himself wearing a crown, flying a “KING TRUMP” fighter jet, and bombing a crowd of No Kings protesters with brown liquid.
The video, shared on the president’s personal and government social media accounts, shows the president soaring above a protest crowd in what appears to be Times Square. The jet then dumps brown liquid on the demonstrators as Kenny Loggins’ “Danger Zone” plays in the background, an apparent reference to the Top Gun movies.
In the lead-up to the No Kings demonstrations, which organizers estimate drew nearly 7 million people across all 50 states, Republicans have responded with a mixture of hyperbole, criticism, and mockery.
House Speaker Mike Johnson and congressional Republicans called the protests “Hate America” rallies, while Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy suggested participants are pro-Hamas or paid protesters acting on behalf of Antifa, a movement the administration has deemed a domestic terror group.
The president’s Republican allies similarly played on the “king” label, mocking demonstrators with images and AI video of the president wearing a crown on social media.
Vice President JD Vance shared an AI-created video of the president putting on a crown and cape, while Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats kneel before him.
Trump-linked accounts also posted several images of the president wearing a crown, including a mock cover of Time magazine, and an AI-created video of the president draped in red velvet and waving from the White House.
The Independent has requested comment from the White House.
The idea of the president unilaterally exerting power and using military might on Americans isn’t so far removed from the president, with the White House deploying federal immigration agents across cities like Portland and Chicago over the objections of protesters and local officials, while pushing to add National Guard troops in those same locations.
Critics have accused the White House of using these operations to provoke unrest that might trigger the president’s invocation of the Insurrection Act, further militarizing local law enforcement.
No Kings organizers were acutely aware of the administration’s attempts to link what is likely the biggest single-day protest in modern history to violence.
“They’re clearly scared of peaceful opposition,” Indivisible co-founder Ezra Levin told The Independent this week.
The president has blended mocking rhetoric and violent imagery before.
In September, as the White House was ramping up threats ahead of its eventual attempt to send the National Guard into Chicago, the president posted an AI-generated image of himself in a cowboy hat, U.S. Army fatigues, and aviator sunglasses with military helicopters flying low over the Chicago skyline, which was engulfed in flames.
The image also contained the slogan “Chipocalypse Now,’”an apparent reference to the 1979 Vietnam War movie Apocalypse Now.
“‘I love the smell of deportations in the morning…’ Chicago is about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,” Trump’s post read.
The highly unusual presidential communications also follow the administration’s crackdown on dissent from left-wing protest groups, visa holders, and certain forms of speech following the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, in large part on the premise that violent rhetoric on the left is driving political violence in the real world.
