Donald Trump next to Game of Thrones-style text reading 'The Wall Is Coming' with border wall below

The Wall Is Coming

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Published October 2, 2026

On January 5, 2019, Donald Trump tweeted a photoshopped image of himself captioned 'The Wall Is Coming' in a Game of Thrones style font, mashing the HBO show's 'Winter Is Coming' tagline with his border wall pitch. The post pulled over 234,000 likes within 48 hours and set off a wave of mocking replies from writers, politicians, and Redditors that outran the original.

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Overview

The image pairs a stern photo of Donald Trump with 'The Wall Is Coming' text set in a Game of Thrones style title treatment, swapping 'Winter' for 'Wall' to pin HBO's doom-laden catchphrase onto the proposed southern border wall3. The joke's recognition rides on viewers already carrying the show's menacing association with the phrase, redirected at a political promise.

Reply-dunks quickly broke the frame by pointing out that the Wall in Game of Thrones ultimately failed to stop the Night King's army, a plot beat that undercut the intended menace5. The replies, rather than the image itself, drove most of the engagement, turning the tweet into a mock-everyone contest among writers and politicians4.

Origin & Background

Platform
Twitter
Date
2019

Trump posted the image from his personal Twitter account on January 5, 2019, roughly two weeks into the federal government shutdown driven by border wall funding fights1. The tweet accumulated upwards of 234,000 likes and 71,600 retweets inside its first 48 hours1.

The underlying photoshop's artist is not publicly confirmed; Trump's account was the earliest known posting of this specific edit, and KYM credits the image only to the tweet itself3.

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How It Spread

Writer Jess Dweck's three-word reply, 'You have never made anything come,' drew the loudest numeric response in the mentions, pulling more than 108,000 likes and 10,600 retweets inside two days2. Writer Lauren Duca flagged the Game of Thrones plot hole in a reply reading 'The wall specifically didn't work in that show, idiot,' which drew over 4,200 likes5. The following day, filmmaker Jeremy Newberger tweeted a mock conversation between Trump and an aide walking the president through the show's actual plot7.

Senator Chuck Schumer joined in with a brief 'Enough with the memes' reply, which gathered more than 106,000 likes and 21,700 retweets4. Fox News reposted the Schumer quote to Facebook alongside a photo of the senator6. On Reddit, user Gunslinger1776 submitted a secondary edit to r/The_Donald showing Trump looking at a framed version of the image on his desk3.

Timeline

2019-01-05

Donald Trump tweets the Game of Thrones styled 'The Wall Is Coming' image from his personal Twitter account during the federal shutdown.

2019-01-05

Writers Lauren Duca and Jess Dweck post viral reply dunks within hours of the original tweet.

2019-01-06

Filmmaker Jeremy Newberger posts a mock Trump-aide dialogue about the show's plot.

2019-01-06

Senator Chuck Schumer replies 'Enough with the memes,' which outperforms many of the response tweets with 106,000+ likes.

2019-01-06

Fox News reshares the Schumer quote to Facebook, and Redditor Gunslinger1776 posts a desk-framed edit to r/The_Donald.

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