President Donald Trump has made no secret of his love for artificial intelligence.
He reposts it, brags about it, and uses it like a personal hype machine. But everyone knows AI has a blind spot — it gets things wrong, and when it does, somebody always catches it. You might not see it at first glance. But somebody will.
That somebody zoomed in this time, and what they found did not flatter the leader of the free world. The internet does not forgive, and it certainly does not forget. Trump’s AI habit has produced some head-scratching moments before, but his latest upload may have handed his critics the most unintentional punchline of his entire second term. He posted it, thinking people would see strength. What they saw instead told a very different story.
On Saturday, June 27, the president took to social media to share an AI-generated image of himself on one knee, draped in an American flag, holding up the entire world on his shoulders. While he left no caption or context to the meme, anyone with a grade school education caught the reference.
Trump positioned himself as Atlas, a Titan in Greek mythology who was cursed to bear the weight of the celestial heavens for eternity as punishment for rebelling against the gods. Presumably, Trump intended to cast himself as a strong man carrying civilization’s burden on his shoulders alone.
The internet noticed almost immediately but responded in a different way than he thought.
On Threads, a user placed the AI image side-by-side with a real photograph of Trump taken that same day. The image showed the 80-year-old looking visibly exhausted, slumped over, and disheveled. He was riding in the back of the presidential state car known as “The Beast,” leaving the White House for a day at his golf club in Sterling, Virginia.
The contrast was jarring.
Then, followers on the thread zoomed in. Right there in the AI image, the American flag he draped himself with was dragging on the ground — a detail that set off its own firestorm.
“His letting the flag drag on the ground is him epitomized,” one person stated. Someone else saw it too, and wrote, “Letting the flag touch the ground is a perfect illustration of his lack of respect for this country.” Another commenter questioned, “The flag is dragging on the ground. Isn’t that a federal offense?”
The mythology mockery followed just as fast.
“Atlas’ punishment was carrying the world because he lost to the gods,” one user wrote. “So this is quite fitting: loser to loser. The stupidity of this administration is staggering.”
Others kept it personal.
“False self-confidence!!!” wrote one X user. Another delivered this: “That’s quite the fantasy. How did he do that with his stubby ankles like tree trunks? His biggest challenge these days is staying awake during important meetings — or even when he’s talking. Lol.”
This is far from the first time Trump’s AI habit has blown up in his face.
On June 4, he posted a bizarre video showing himself holding a hose and refilling the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool with the tears of a woman in glasses and a green jacket — a seeming callback to a viral clip of a woman screaming “No” at his first inauguration. The post landed with a thud.
And before that, there was the AI image of Trump in a white robe with light emanating from his hand, positioning him as a messianic healer. After Marjorie Taylor Greene condemned it publicly, Trump tried to clean it up.
On Orthodox Easter, President Trump attacked the Pope because the Pope is rightly against Trump’s war in Iran and then he posted this picture of himself as if he is replacing Jesus.
— Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@FmrRepMTG) April 13, 2026
This comes after last week’s post of his evil tirade on Easter and then threatening to kill an… pic.twitter.com/mq27jxJEnt
“I thought it was me as a doctor,” he told reporters. “Making people better. And I do make people better. I make people a lot better.”
"CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!"
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) February 19, 2025
–President Donald J. Trump pic.twitter.com/IMr4tq0sMB
One time, he shared an image of himself as a king and another time as the pope.
View on Threads
But this time, the very tool Trump has championed as a symbol of his administration’s dominance became the source of his undoing. He commissioned an image designed to project power and legacy — and artificial intelligence delivered a dragging flag, a mythological cautionary tale, and a side-by-side comparison with reality that no communications team could walk back.
The president did not need his critics to undermine the message. The technology did it for him.
