“Chipocalypse”: Trump taunts Chicago with AI photo

Donald Trump has stirred up controversy by posting a threatening message on Truth Social, in which he claims Chicago “is about to find out” why he renamed the “Department of Defense” to the “Department of War.”

He accompanied his statement with an AI-generated image with a nod to the film Apocalypse Now.

The image shows Trump wearing the hat of Lieutenant-Colonel Kilgore, played by Robert Duvall, with Chicago in flames in the background after U.S. Army helicopters have passed through. Implying the helicopters (and subsequently Trump) were responsible for the destruction. 

This meme was widely criticized, especially as it contained the phrase “I love the smell of deportations in the morning”, a parody of Duvall’s famous line.

Trump then tried to calm the controversy by asserting that his administration is “not going to war” with Chicago, asserting that he wants to “clean up our cities.”

JB Pritzker, the Democratic governor of Illinois, strongly denounced Trump’s post on X, saying his threat to wage war on an American city was neither a joke nor something normal, and asserting that his state will not be intimidated by a “wannabe dictator.”