President Trump Unexpectedly Uses Pokémon Pokopia to Promote the MAGA Agenda

US President Donald Trump and his team are leveraging the popularity of Pokémon Pokopia to promote their 'Make America Great Again' agenda by utilizing a trending meme-making tool.

The White House unexpectedly joins the Pokemon Pokopia meme trend.

 Released on March 5th on Nintendo Switch 2, Pokémon Pokopia allows players to take on the role of a  Ditto  and transform into. a human. Their task is to use building and crafting mechanics to make their deserted island more comfortable for the Pokémon  living  there. Initial impressions led the community to compare  Pokémon Pokopia  to  Minecraft  due to its distinctive blocky style, and also because of the element of befriending  Pokémon  and developing the island together.

A few days before the game's release, social media was flooded with screenshots of the Pokémon Pokopia title screen, but the text had been altered using a logo font creation tool available on Pixelframe. This tool was used to convey all sorts of different messages, from adult jokes about the Pokémon brand to simple status updates completely unrelated to the game.

On the very day Pokémon Pokopia was released, the White House's official Twitter account also joined the trend by posting an image created using the tool, simply displaying the words 'make america great again' in the game's distinctive, colorful font, written entirely in lowercase.

This phrase is the slogan Donald Trump has used since his successful 2016 presidential campaign against Hillary Clinton. The new Twitter post doesn't say much beyond the image, just includes the title 'MAGA' along with the American flag and lightning bolt emoji. However, that was enough to spark controversy, with many comments below continuing to post other Pokémon memes created in the same format.

This isn't the first time recently that the White House's official Twitter account has used video games to reach the American public. Just days before, the White House communications team used footage from the game to promote the current U.S. military involvement in Iran.

The video initially shows rough gameplay of the game, then switches to real-life missile attack scenes, set to music by Childish Gambino. Actor and filmmaker Donald Glover – who uses the stage name Childish Gambino for his music career – is not publicly active on social media and has not issued an official response. However, he has previously expressed his opposition to Trump, with his 2018 work often seen as a critique of Trump's political agenda.

This isn't the first time someone in the Trump administration has used the Pokémon brand to promote controversial political actions. In September 2025, the White House's official TikTok account posted a similar video, showing U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents and ICE agents arresting several individuals believed to be undocumented immigrants, set to the theme music of an English Pokémon anime  song .

The video used the popular slogan  "Gotta Catch 'Em All"  to create a catchy phrase, interspersed with images of closed Poké Balls and the main character Ash Ketchum, and real-life scenes of agents searching suspects, handcuffing them, pulling up their shirts, and displaying the faces, names, and alleged crimes of various individuals. The Pokémon Company subsequently issued a public statement that they did not license the use of their intellectual property in the video, although they have not pursued legal action since.