What is Cheeto Jesus?

It is a pejorative nickname for Donald Trump that compares his orange skin tone to Frito-Lay's cheese-dusted Cheetos snack[1].

Where did Cheeto Jesus come from?

Republican strategist Rick Wilson coined it in a ten-part anti-Trump Twitter rant posted on June 15, 2016[1].

What does Cheeto Jesus mean?

It mocks Trump's orange complexion (Cheeto) and the messianic devotion of his 2016 supporters (Jesus), and it was aimed at his self-congratulatory response to the Orlando shooting[3].

How do you use Cheeto Jesus?

You either drop the nickname into political commentary as a substitute for Trump's name, or you Photoshop his face onto an orange snack like a Cheeto or a Circus Peanut[4].

Is Cheeto Jesus still popular?

It peaked in June 2016 during the primary season and is now a classic 2016-era political meme still referenced in coverage of Trump's public image[1].

Rick Wilson is a veteran Republican political consultant and one of the most vocal figures in the Never Trump movement, known for profanity-laced attacks on the RNC[1].

Why Cheetos and not another snack?

The orange coloring of Frito-Lay's Cheetos matches Trump's tanning-bed complexion, which was already a running joke about him before Wilson formalized it[2].

Which news outlets covered the meme?

The Daily Dot, Mother Jones, Huffington Post, CNET, and Inquisitr all ran pieces about the nickname within days of the tweet[2].

What triggered Rick Wilson's tweetstorm?

Wilson was reacting to Trump's response to the June 12, 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, where Trump congratulated himself for being "right on Islamic terrorism"[3].

Cheeto Jesus

2016catchphraseclassic

Published August 17, 2026

Cheeto Jesus is a mocking nickname for Donald Trump coined by Republican strategist Rick Wilson in a ten-part Twitter rant on June 15, 2016. The name compares Trump's orange complexion to Frito-Lay's cheese-dusted snack, and it spawned a wave of Photoshopped parodies on Twitter and Reddit within 48 hours.

trump memes celebrity nickname memes political satire memes photoshop memes hashtag memes

Overview

Cheeto Jesus is a pejorative nickname aimed at Donald Trump that riffs on his signature orange complexion by likening it to the neon dust coating Frito-Lay's cheese snack1. The name pairs trashy junk-food imagery with mock-messianic language, poking at both Trump's tanning-bed glow and the near-religious devotion his supporters showed during the 2016 Republican primary3.

The phrase came from Rick Wilson, a longtime Republican consultant and one of the loudest voices in the Never Trump camp, who dropped it in a Twitter rant blasting the Republican National Committee for backing Trump days after the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando1. The nickname stuck almost immediately, running as a hashtag on Twitter and getting turned into a lineup of doctored images that swapped Trump's face onto Cheetos, Circus Peanuts, and other orange snack foods4.

Origin & Background

Platform

Twitter

Creator

Rick Wilson

Date

2016

On the night of June 15, 2016, Rick Wilson posted a ten-part tweetstorm accusing RNC staffers of hiding behind off-the-record grumbling instead of publicly disowning Trump1. In the eighth tweet, Wilson wrote: "This weekend, people were lined up hundreds deep to give blood to the victims of Orlando. Your Cheeto Jesus was praising himself"3. The jab targeted Trump's response to the Pulse nightclub shooting three days earlier, when the candidate had congratulated himself on Twitter for being "right on Islamic terrorism"3.

Wilson was not a random online critic. He had been publicly attacking Trump for months, and back in January 2016 he made cable-news headlines on MSNBC by describing Trump's alt-right fans as "childless single men who masturbate to anime"; within 48 hours of his June tweet, the Cheeto Jesus post pulled in more than 3,500 likes and 2,200 retweets4.

How It Spread

The nickname jumped from Wilson's feed to the wider internet fast. On the same day, Twitter user @GroverOwnedPawn shared a photo of a Circus Peanut candy with Trump's face pasted on top, and by June 16 dozens of Photoshopped Trump-as-snack images were flying around under the hashtag #CheetoJesus; Redditor MushroomFry submitted a Cheeto Jesus photo to /r/EnoughTrumpSpam that pulled roughly 14,800 votes and 280 comments in 24 hours4.

Political blogs and news sites amplified the joke inside two days. The Daily Dot published a play-by-play of the whole tweetstorm and quipped that if Wilson "wasn't so caught up in politics, he could definitely compete with some of the shadiest queens on RuPaul's Drag Race"2. Mother Jones ran the numbered tweets as an "epic" tirade and credited Wilson with coining the nickname1.

By later that week the joke had crossed into mainstream press. The Huffington Post ran a summary of Wilson's tweets and framed Cheeto Jesus as the newest weapon in the Never Trump movement's public fight with the RNC3. CNET, Inquisitr, and other pop-culture outlets followed with roundups of the ongoing Photoshop pile-on, and the phrase kept surfacing in political commentary for the rest of the 2016 campaign1.

How to Use This Meme

The Cheeto Jesus format is usually one of two things. It is either a text jab that swaps the nickname in for Trump's name in political commentary, or a doctored image that puts Trump's face on something orange and processed. Common versions include Trump's face on a single Cheeto puff, on a Circus Peanut candy, or on a Frito-Lay bag4. Image versions often lean into the mock-messianic angle by adding halos, robes, or stained-glass framing to sell the Jesus half of the joke. As a text insult the phrase works as a straight substitution, typically used by Never Trump conservatives and left-leaning critics alike.

Cultural Impact

Cheeto Jesus landed inside a wider 2016 pattern of food-based Trump insults, joining Cheeto-in-Chief, Tangerine Tornado, and similar orange-adjacent nicknames aimed at his complexion. Because Wilson was himself a Republican and a longtime GOP media consultant, the phrase carried extra weight when it appeared in Mother Jones as evidence of the Never Trump movement's internal revolt1. The Daily Dot called the line the "tastiest morsel" of Wilson's whole rant, and the article helped push the nickname beyond political Twitter into general pop-culture circulation2.

Fun Facts

Wilson coined the nickname in the eighth tweet of a ten-part rant, not in an isolated one-liner1.

The same tweetstorm also referenced the "No Ragrets" chest tattoo from the 2013 movie We're the Millers as a metaphor for the RNC's Trump endorsement2.

Trump's Orlando response, praised by Wilson as self-congratulatory, was the specific trigger for the Cheeto Jesus line3.

Reddit's /r/EnoughTrumpSpam subreddit was the first large non-Twitter hub for the meme, with MushroomFry's post clearing 14,800 votes in a day4.

Wilson had already gone viral in January 2016 for calling Trump's alt-right base "childless single men who masturbate to anime" during an MSNBC appearance4.

Derivatives & Variations

#CheetoJesus hashtag Photoshop series on Twitter featuring Trump's face on various orange snacks[4]

@GroverOwnedPawn's Circus Peanut edit, which pulled over 400 likes and 190 retweets within 48 hours[4]

MushroomFry's /r/EnoughTrumpSpam post, which cleared roughly 14,800 votes in 24 hours[4]