Kevin Dietsch/AP
Late Saturday, as “No Kings” protests across the country came to a close, President Donald Trump emerged with what appeared to be his official response to the resoundingly peaceful demonstrations opposing his presidency: He posted a video of himself, as king, manning a fighter jet as it released shit-laden sludge onto his detractors.
The clip, which was reposted to his Truth Social account, was seemingly created via artificial intelligence. Its apparent aim—to mock protesters with self-regarding, intentionally asinine content—was nauseatingly obvious. But ask the top Republican in Congress about the president’s feces-dumping video, and one could easily mistake the remarks for a discussion of high art.
“The president uses social media to make a point,” Johnson told reporters Monday. “You can argue he’s probably the most effective person who has ever used social media for that. He is using satire to make a point.”
Johnson continued by using the foul clip to, once again, falsely brand “No Kings” participants as murderous, America-hating degenerates. “He is not calling for the murder of his political opponents,” he said, “and that’s what these people are doing.”
In the same press conference, Texas Rep. Chip Roy went further, labeling Trump’s critics as “Marxists, radicals, and Islamists” who could not handle what he called the truth of “Jesus Christ as king.” (It’s unclear if the Texas Republican had seen Saturday’s clip of Trump, not anyone’s god, as a shit-soaring king.) Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance responded to his boss’s shit-posting with a variation of the same rancid behavior; White House communications director Steven Cheung replied with similar glee.
Together, Johnson’s absurd defense, Roy’s “Jesus is King” line, our ever-online vice president, and the White House crystallized what my colleague Anna Merlan accurately described as the official voice of the US government: cruel, gross, and weird. It’s 2025 agitprop as Trump imagines the world under his shit-dumping rule.
