The Dictatorship

Trump White House Is Releasing Video Mixes Of Iran War Footage With Video Games And Action Movies

Published

3 months ago

March 12, 2026

Trump White House Is Releasing Video Mixes Of Iran War Footage With Video Games And Action Movies

Peaceful and violent, in video game screenshots and movie clips and on professional playing fields, the icons come fast and furious in quick-cut footage — some of the most renowned slivers of 21st-century American popular culture, harnessed by the Trump administration to promote the freshly launched war with Iran.

The White House’s social media feed has issued a series of pumped-up videos that mix real Iran was explosions with movie action heroes, gaming footage and bone-crunching football tackles, leading critics like a top cleric of the U.S. Catholic Church to condemn a trivialization of deadly real-life conflict.

Clips from “Braveheart,” “Superman,” “Top Gun,” “Breaking Bad,” and “Iron Man.” All appear cut between declassified imagery of what is presumably the Iran war. Even the cartoon likeness of SpongeBob SquarePants is spliced in, asking, “You wanna see me do it again?” in between images of buildings, planes and vehicles blown up by American bombs. The caption on one bomb-heavy post: “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue” — the title of a post-9/11 Toby Keith song about war that is subtitled “The Angry American.”

People wait in line for theater presentations for video games including Batman, Mortal Kombat X and Shadow of Mordor at the WB Games booth at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, Wednesday, June 11, 2014, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

The fiction-meets-reality product of the White House’s aggressive social media team cuts a wide swath through cultural touchstones that resonate with young men, including the video games Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Mortal Kombat and Halo. Two videos feature NFL and college football tackles and Major League Baseball home runs — with the cracks of bats interspersed with explosions.

They’re set to ominous or aggressive music, including Childish Gambino’s “Bonfire,” Miami XO’s “Bazooka” and AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck.” One of the White House postings described the video as “JUSTICE THE AMERICAN WAY,” accompanied by flag and fire emojis.

It’s hard not to see the thinking here: The more cinematic the content, the more people might support the war.

Two actors call for their depictions to be removed from videos

The sounds and images of American popular culture, a sure attention-getter in many contexts, have increasingly been used in politics in recent decades, at least as far back as Bill Clinton’s use of Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop” during his 1992 presidential campaign. Never, though, has a White House built and disseminated content quite like this, drawing explicit parallels between the aggressive moments of modern entertainment — a video game kill shot, a hard football hit, a towering home run — and battle footage to amplify the enthusiasm for war.

What’s happening with the White House videos, which some call the “gamification” of war, hasn’t landed well in some quarters.

Ben Stiller accepts the awards for best comedy for “Tropic Thunder” at the 14th Annual Critics’ Choice Awards, Thursday Jan. 8, 2009, in Santa Monica, Calif. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)

Two actors whose work appeared in the videos — Ben Stiller, who starred in the 2008 movie “Tropic Thunder,” and Steve Downes, who portrays Master Chief, the protagonist in Halo — said the material was used without permission and called for their depictions to be removed.

Stiller said on X that he had “no interest in being part of your propaganda machine. War is not a movie.” Downes called the videos “disgusting and juvenile war porn.” Neither the NFL nor Major League Baseball would comment on the use of their footage in the war videos.

The discussion reached a high level in the U.S. Catholic Church as well. Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago, said he found it sickening to see a war that has brought real death and suffering being treated like a video game. That approach, he said, dishonors the people who have died, including U.S. servicemen.

Archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal Blase Cupich, answers a journalist's question during an interview with The Associated Press, in front of St. Bartholomew church, in Rome, Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, File) — Archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal Blase Cupich, answers a journalist’s question during an interview with The Associated Press, in front of St. Bartholomew church, in Rome, Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, File)

“Our government is treating the suffering of the Iranian people as a backdrop for our own entertainment, as if it’s just another piece of content to be swiped through while we’re waiting in line at the grocery store,” Cupich said in a weekend statement. “But, in the end, we lose our humanity when we are thrilled by the destructive power of our military.”

Asked for comment, the White House would not say whether or not it would accommodate artists who said their work was used without permission.

“America’s heroic warfighters are meeting or surpassing all of their goals under Operation Epic Fury,” said White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly. “The legacy media wants us to apologize for highlighting the United States Military’s incredible success, but the White House will continue showcasing the many examples of Iran’s ballistic missiles, production facilities, and dreams of owning a nuclear weapon being destroyed in real time.”

It’s not the first time this White House has trotted out game-related memes. Last year, it posted a drawing of Trump dressed as Master Chief. In another, it made Trump look like a blocky Minecraft character with the caption: “America’s most pro-gamer president.”

Every war has a psychological dimension, and this seems to be part of it, said Zia Haque, director of the Baker Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies at Juniata College in Pennsylvania. “We live in a digital age, and I see this as a use of the space to propagate the message across the board,” he said.

A motivation to be cool?

Some observers also cast the administration’s content as potential efforts to encourage gamers to join the military. It wouldn’t be a first: The Pentagon’s efforts to recruit players date to at least 2002, with the release of a first-person shooter called America’s Army. The Defense Department also sends recruiters to video game conventions and esports tournaments.

Today, many of Trump’s loudest fans are young white men who are gamers and heavy consumers of sports and popular culture — and thus likely a receptive audience for such imagery and music.

Many young men are motivated to join the military because they want to be cool like the people they see in action movies, said Ray Deptula, who recently retired from the U.S. Navy after 24 years and rose to the rank of commander. That’s what motivated him, he said. So he can see the appeal of the videos.

Gamers play “Halo Wars 2″ at the Xbox Media Showcase at E3 2016, Monday, June 13, 2016, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Casey Rodgers/Invision for Microsoft/AP Images, File)

But, he says, there’s a caveat — a big one.

“That’s not what your life is going to be like,” said Deptula, who recently wrote a novel, “A Dog Before a Soldier,” about a young man who joined the military out of desperation during the Revolutionary War. “Your life is going to be about hard work and humility.”

But Jeff Fromm, co-author of “Marketing to Gen Z,” has doubts about the videos’ long-term effectiveness.

Many young people in Generation Z are keenly interested in transparency and the values of organizations they are seeking to join, and Fromm questions whether the current administration rates highly in those areas.

Sometimes the overlap between real life and game culture is accidental. Last week, Trump posted on Truth Social that defense contractors had agreed to “quadruple Production of the ‘Exquisite Class’ Weaponry.” Policy experts were puzzled — but Final Fantasy XIV players were reminded of the game’s most powerful weapons. Still, the president probably wasn’t calling for the game’s Exquisite Wrathgrinder to go into production.

___

Associated Press correspondents Matt Brown in Washington and Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report.

The Dictatorship

Monday’s Campaign Round-Up, 6.22.26: Why Trump backed both Republicans in a key S.C. race

Published

11 hours ago

June 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Monday’s Campaign Round-Up, 6.22.26: Why Trump backed both Republicans in a key S.C. race

Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.

* In South Carolina’s gubernatorial raceDonald Trump endorsed Lt. Gov. Pam Evette last month. Last week, however, ahead of this week’s primary runoff election in the race, the president published an online item telling voters that “you can’t go wrong” with either Evette or state Attorney General Alan Wilson.

If this sounds at all familiar, it’s because Trump has done this before. Around this time two years ago, for example, he endorsed both Republicans running in a congressional primary in Arizona. And two years before that, he endorsed two leading contenders in a Senate primary in Missouri.

Only the president can say for sure why he ended up endorsing Evette and Wilson in the South Carolina race, though it’s worth emphasizing for context that GOP primary voters have already ignored his direction into two gubernatorial primaries this month, and it stands to reason that he hoped to avoid a third.

* We’re one day away from a variety of notable racesincluding but not limited to South Carolina’s gubernatorial race. There are also some congressional primaries in a handful of statesincluding Maryland, New York and Utah.

* In took a while, but the ballots have been tallied under Maine’s ranked-choice systemand we now know that Democrat Hannah Pingree, the former state House speaker, will face off against Republican Bobby Charles, who worked at the State Department during the Bush-Cheney era.

* As for Maine’s closely watched congressional racestate Auditor Matt Dunlap won the Democratic nomination in the battleground 2nd District, defeating state Sen. Joe Baldacci, who enjoyed the backing of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Dunlap will run in the fall against a familiar figure: former Republican Gov. Paul LePage, who had moved to Florida a few years ago, but who returned to run for Congress.

* In California’s congressional special electiontwo Democratic candidates — state Sen. Aisha Wahab and Melissa Hernandez, a Bay Area Rapid Transit director — have advanced to an Aug. 18 special general election. The winner will fill the vacancy left by disgraced former Rep. Eric Swalwell, who resigned in April.

* In a new commercial shared first with MS NOWDemocrat James Talarico has launched his campaign’s first multimillion-dollar ad buy in Texas’ gubernatorial race. In the 30-second spot, Talarico focuses on affordability and the cost of living. The state lawmaker will face scandal-plagued state Attorney General Ken Paxton in the fall.

* And in New Jersey, Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr.who has been missing from Capitol Hill since early March, will reportedly return to work on June 30according to a statement from his spokesperson. Neither Kean nor his office have offered any public information about why he has been away.

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”

The Dictatorship

Trump tries dual endorsement in South Carolina as his pick for governor flounders in polls

Published

11 hours ago

June 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Trump tries dual endorsement in South Carolina as his pick for governor flounders in polls

Jun. 22, 2026, 11:39 AM EDT

After President Donald Trump’s pick for governor in Iowa lost in the Republican primary earlier this month, the president argued that he “would have endorsed the other person” if he had “the proper information.”

Trump is taking no chances in the South Carolina gubernatorial primary. Over the weekend he rescinded his exclusive endorsement of Pamela Evette, the lieutenant governor, announcing instead that he would support both Evette and her runoff opponent, Alan Wilson, the state’s attorney general.

The move put Evette’s political future in jeopardy: Even before Trump’s dual endorsement, she trailed in limited public polling and was seen by political observers in South Carolina as a weak candidate with little to show besides the president’s coveted endorsement.

“Her chief distinction from Alan Wilson was that Trump endorsed her,” said Dr. Dubose Kapeluck, a professor of political science at the Citadel Military College of South Carolina.

Trump’s dual endorsement “was a kiss of death,” he told MS NOW.

Evette, who moved to South Carolina from Ohio to found a successful payroll and HR company in 2000, has been lieutenant governor since 2019, serving under Gov. Henry McMaster, who is term-limited.

In office, she has pursued meaningful but little-celebrated policies, like a key tort reform bill, according to Gil Gatch, a Republican member of the South Carolina state House and an Evette supporter.

But voters could be forgiven for knowing little about Evette besides the fact that Trump endorsed her, which he did just days before the June 9 primary. Visitors to her campaign website are greeted with a full-screen message labeling Evette as “Trump-endorsed.” The first line in her X bio states the same. Pro-Evette television ads are quick to tout the endorsement.

An accomplishment like tort reform, while noted on Evette’s website, “maybe could have been something that was highlighted more heavily,” Gatch told MS NOW.

The political makeup of South Carolina nearly guarantees the next governor will be whoever emerges on Tuesday between Evette and Wilson. They survived a crowded primary field on June 9, and nearly every challenger who fell short of the runoff publicly endorsed the attorney general.

“She’s just not a good candidate,” Josh Kimbrell, a state senator who failed to make the runoff and has since said he’d back Wilson, said of Evette.

“She kind of assumed this was a coronation, and that was never going to go over that well,” he added.

Even some pro-Trump voters were confused by the president’s initial endorsement of Evette, whom he called “a good friend, fighter, and WINNER” in a social media post in May.

“I have no clue why Trump would endorse Pamela Evette,” Leland Lemmons, a 30-year-old Trump supporter told MS NOW as he exited a polling site in the Greenville suburb of Easley on June 9.

“She’s served, you know, a decent time. I just haven’t seen much fruition of what she’s done in office,” he added.

In a post on Truth Social Friday announcing his dual endorsement, Trump wrote, “I can’t hurt one of them by only Endorsing the other, so, therefore, I am going to Endorse, for Governor of South Carolina, both Pam Evette and Alan Wilson!”

In a subsequent statement on X, Evette said, “I was proud to come in first as [Trump’s] endorsed candidate for Governor on June 9th. Looking forward to doing it again on June 23rd.”

After The Washington Post foreshadowed the dual endorsement last Tuesday, allies of Evette were quick to denounce the possibility.

“I would guess that’s fake news,” Suzanne Pucci, a member of Evette’s finance committee, told MS NOW of the chance Trump would also endorse Wilson. “She’s probably not real worried about it.”

Another close ally and supporter told MS NOW at the time the report was “a total, fabricated lie.”

“[Trump] is invested in Pamela Evette because she invested in him. He’s a loyal guy. That kind of stuff is important to him,” added the supporter, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“With or without Trump, I think she is going to win,” they said.

On Thursday, a senior campaign aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, brushed off the idea of a dual endorsement, telling MS NOW in a statement, “Pamela Evette has earned the complete and total endorsement of President Trump. She is the only Trump-endorsed candidate in this race and we look forward to delivering a big win for the president on Tuesday.”

Roughly 24 hours later, Trump retracted the exclusive endorsement.

Will McDuffie is a reporter for MS NOW.

The Dictatorship

Fears of an ‘economic catastrophe’ helped push Trump toward an Iran deal

Published

11 hours ago

June 22, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Fears of an ‘economic catastrophe’ helped push Trump toward an Iran deal

As last week’s G7 summit in France got underway, a reporter asked Donald Trump whether his purported deal with Iran was final. “No, it’s not final,” the president replied. Later that day — during a visit to Versaillesof all places — he signed the framework anyway.

But moments after signing his name to the memorandum of understanding, Trump offered an unsubtle hint about what he was thinking at the time. Amid applause from those around him, the American president pointed down and then up while saying“Oil down, stocks up.”

In other words, Trump’s focus had nothing to do with natural security and everything to do with the economy. What’s more, the four-word phrase was part of a larger and underappreciated pattern. The Washington Post reported:

In the more than 100 days since President Donald Trump launched a war with Iran, he has offered a shifting list of reasons for why he started the conflict. But in explaining his push for peace, he named a priority much closer to home: protecting the stock market.

“I didn’t want to see economic catastrophe,” Trump told reporters gathered in the Alpine spa town of Évian-les-Bains, France, after the Group of Seven summit.

As the summit wrapped up, the Republican similarly said“I’ve studied presidents, some good, some bad, some great. Not too many are great and some really bad. … And the one president I did not want to be was the late, great Herbert Hoover. I didn’t want that and who knows what would have happened.”

He pushed the same point in an interview with Axios, which was released over the weekend.

“If I went further, the stock market would be much lower,” the president said. “Now think of this: I have one primary wish as president, in terms of people: I never want to be the late, great Herbert Hoover.”

The comments came days after Trump similarly argued“The alternative to this deal was a global recession. There are stupid people who want to see a global recession. They are just stupid people.”

Whether the president fully appreciates the implications of his own rhetoric, this string of comments doesn’t just shed light on his motivations for accepting a defeat, it also suggests he saw his failed policy in Iran as pushing the global economy toward a dangerous cliff.

In other words, based on Trump’s own comments, the war he started was poised to create an “economic catastrophe,” which he was desperate to avoid — and which led him to accept a framework that empowered Iran to get what it wanted in exchange for effectively no concessions at all.