Donald Trump made his desire to be king very clear in a new social media post that attempted to hijack the season finale of HBO’s House of the Dragon.
The White House posted a reimagining of the property’s grounds in the style of the Game of Thrones title sequence on Monday. The seemingly AI-generated video features a three-dimensional map of Trump’s various restoration projects, including the cascading fountain in Meridian Hill Park and those at Dupont Circle and beside Union Station. The HBO series’ theme song is played, unaltered, throughout the spoof.
The video ends with a medieval-style Oval Office in which the Resolute Desk transforms into a throne with an American flag emblem on it. The caption posted with the rendering reads, “THE CAPITAL: RESTORED ⚡Order restored. The capital reclaimed.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to HBO for comment.
In 2018, the company was less than pleased in 2018, when Trump used a Game of Thrones-inspired poster to announce the reimposition of sanctions on Iran. HBO’s EVP and head of marketing at the time, Chris Spadaccini, told Variety the following year, “Our attitude was we don’t really like our IP to be used for political purposes.” He added, “It’s such a cultural phenomenon that brands are going to be out there culture-jacking Game of Thrones,” but he was surprised to see that “Trump got in on the action.”
The company complained on social media, referencing the show’s fictional language, “How do you say trademark misuse in Dothraki?”
But ultimately, Spadaccini said HBO “didn’t want to pick a fight” with the president. “I gave my social team a lot of credit because they had a very snarky little subtweet that… got a lot of press coverage.”
Trump’s post is just his latest attempt to normalize referring to himself as a “king,” as he also posted a flying “King Trump” flag, teasing an illegal 2028 run, on his Truth Social page on Sunday evening.
