Trump in Master Chief's Armor: White House Grabs Gamers’ Attention With Viral Post
Hennadiy Chemеris
It looks like the console wars have reached a whole new level. Following Microsoft’s recent announcement of Halo: Campaign Evolved—a remake of the original Halo: Combat Evolved campaign—for PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5, the White House unexpectedly jumped into the conversation by posting an AI-generated image of President Donald Trump as Master Chief from Halo on social media.
The image shows Trump in the iconic green Spartan armor, wielding an energy sword and saluting in front of the White House and an American flag. However, eagle-eyed users quickly spotted something odd: the flag only has 40 stars instead of 50, which instantly sparked a wave of jokes and theories online.
“Not to be that guy but the flag only has 40 stars on it,” — greg16676935420.
“nothing more patriotic than the official white house account posting ai slop with the U.S. flag missing 10 stars 
,” — spectre0799.
“They’re deporting 10 states,” — TobyTurner.
“Some states got consolidated after the Covenanted invaded,” — paulbullard.
“It's us, Denmark. We bought a couple of states, hope you don't mind,” — GIshayu.
“Trump went back in a time machine when there were only 40 states,” — mitchsbehna.
“The rest of the stars are on the other side,” — alexpavia07.
Some users suggested this was just an AI glitch, while others joked that the administration “deleted” ten states on purpose. Memes and parodies quickly flooded X (Twitter), and the original post racked up over 14 million views.
The post is particularly ironic given Trump’s past comments about violent video games. Back in 2019, he claimed that “the culture of violence” and “violent games” were key factors in rising youth crime rates.
This isn’t the first time the White House has used AI to create images of the president. Previous AI-generated pics have shown Trump as the Pope, Superman, and a Jedi from Star Wars.
This time, the choice fell on Halo’s iconic hero—right as the legendary series is making its way to PlayStation. Perhaps the administration is trying to reach out to the gaming community. Microsoft has yet to comment on this unexpected Halo-White House crossover.
By the way, fans have already compared the graphics of Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo: Campaign Evolved online.
