Trump Posted a Meme on Truth Social Threatening War on the City of Chicago
“Chipocalypse Now.”
Published Sept. 8 2025, 2:59 p.m. ET
The president of the United States shared a meme on Truth Social that threatened the city of Chicago with war on Sept. 6, 2025. The post comes amid Donald Trump renaming the Pentagon the "Department of War."
The meme features Trump overlooking the burning city of Chicago as helicopters fly over with the text “Chipocalypse Now," a play on the 1979 Vietnam War movie Apocalypse Now starring Marlon Brando and Martin Sheen. Trump is wearing what appears to be a hat from the Civil War with a pair of shades.
Trump's Chicago meme threatens the city.
The AI image of Trump is dressed in military gear as the Apocalypse Now villain, Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore (played by Robert Duvall). The character is a warmonger who enjoys war in the movie.
The post was captioned, "I love the smell of deportations in the morning. Chicago about to find out why it's called the Department of WAR." The caption also had three helicopter emojis.
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker responded to the president's shocking meme threatening a U.S. city with war on X.
"The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city," he wrote. "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."
The city's mayor, Mayor Brandon Johnson, also responded to the president's baffling post.
"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," he wrote. "We must defend our democracy from this authoritarianism by protecting each other and protecting Chicago from Donald Trump."
Trump posted the meme amid his threats to send the National Guard to Chicago to combat crime and help with deportation efforts, despite a decline in the city's violent crimes, such as homicides, robberies, carjackings, and shootings. The president already sent 2,000 troops to the city of Los Angeles in June after protests broke out over his administration's ICE raids, per CNBC. According to NPR, Trump is also threatening to send troops to New Orleans and Baltimore.
Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D) also responded to Trump's Chicago meme threatening war.
"Take off that Cavalry hat, you draft dodger," she wrote, a reference to Trump avoiding the Vietnam War because he had bone spurs. "You didn’t earn the right to wear it. Stolen valor at its worst."
Trump deployed the National Guard in Washington, D.C. back in August, claiming the need to address the crime and homeless epidemic in the city.
"This is liberation day in D.C., and we're going to take our capital back — we're taking it back," he said at a press conference. "Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs, and homeless people. And we're not going to let it happen anymore — we're not going to take it."