CHICAGO – President Donald Trump on Saturday morning appeared to threaten the City of Chicago with deportations on a post on Truth Social in which he used an AI-generated parody of a war movie.
The post has already received strong criticism from at least Illinois member of Congress.
What we know:
In the post timestamped at 10:38 a.m., Trump wrote, “’I love the smell of deportations in the morning…’
“Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.”
He then included an AI-generated image of him dressed in a uniform labeled “US ARMY” much like the character played by Robert Duvall in the 1979 movie “Apocalypse Now,” a fictional story about soldiers in the Vietnam War. In the image, the words “Chipocalypse Now” are also seen in the font used on the “Apocalypse Now” movie poster.
President Donald Trump on Saturday morning appeared to threaten the City of Chicago with deportations on a post on Truth Social in which he used an AI-generated parody of a war movie.
The president also mentioned the Department of War, which he recently ordered renamed from the Department of Defense.
It was still not entirely clear on Saturday exactly what plans the administration had in terms of the anticipated immigration enforcement measures it had been signaling for weeks.
Multiple Mexican Independence Day festivities planned in Chicago and surrounding suburbs were either canceled or postponed amid fears that such immigration operations could target the attendees.
What they’re saying:
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) decried the post on Saturday during remarks before a in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood.
“This tweet this morning was disgusting, to suggest that the troops are coming into Chicago or that the Department of War is going to be engaged is an embarrassment.”
Gov. JB Pritzker also criticized the post on X:
“The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city. This is not a joke. This is not normal. Donald Trump isn’t a strongman, he’s a scared man. Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator.”
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson also reacted to the post on social media.
“The President’s threats are beneath the honor of our nation, but the reality is that he wants to occupy our city and break our Constitution,” Johnson wrote. “We must defend our democracy from this authoritarianism by protecting each other and protecting Chicago from Donald Trump.”