The White House is using Nintendo Wii games to share unclassified military footage

Donald Trump's White House staff is using again Nintendo games to further their political agenda, this time focusing on Wii Sports franchise to drum up support for Operation Epic Fury, the ongoing military conflict in Iran. New unclassified military footage has been released on White House social media accounts featuring clips of bombings mixed with images and sounds from Nintendo's classic sports simulation series.

Released in 2006 alongside the Nintendo Wii console, Wii Sports is widely considered to be one of the best Nintendo multiplayer games of all time. The innovation of motion controls mixed with a variety of sports attracted many gamers, and since it shipped with the console in most regions around the world, it is also instantly recognizable to almost everyone who has ever owned a Wii.

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The newly released video posted on the White House's official Twitter account opens with Wii Sports' theme song and a mock-up of its title screen, but with the title replaced by the words “Operation Epic Fury.” What follows is a mash-up of Wii Sports series activities such as boxing, tennis, golf, archery, baseball and bowling, interspersed with unclassified black-and-white video footage of military attacks in Iran. The cuts between games and military footage occur repeatedly at the moment of impact in each sport, with the game announcer reacting in kind, such as shouting “Hole in one” just after a golf ball hits the center of a bullseye, followed by an actual explosion. The video appears to use footage from both the original Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resortwhich notably makes use of the latter game's aerial combat mechanics in the Air Sports category in an excerpt.

There is an emerging pattern of White House social media teams using video game assets in their images and video posts. A week before Wii Sports-related video posted, account shared a Pokemon Pokopya meme supporting the MAGA agenda, using a popular image creator that allows users to post custom messages over the game's cover art. The message was very brief, accompanied only by the words “Make America Great Again” and a couple of emojis. It prompted an official response from The Pokemon Company International, which stated that the company did not authorize the use of its intellectual property rights for the meme, and that its “mission is not linked to any political point of view or agenda.”

This also isn't the first time the White House's official social media team has used video game footage to promote Operation Epic Fury. On March 4, Childish Gambino's song “Bonfire” and gameplay from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 was mixed with footage of strikes in Iran in a video on the White House Twitter page, which appears to have since been taken down. Two days later, the account posted a video of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas' theme song and protagonist, Carl Johnson, repeating multiple clips of various military targets in Iran being hit, showing the franchise's trademark “Wasted” animation accompanying each explosion.

Carl Johnson AKA CJ in Grand Theft Auto San Andreas (4)

While the White House has not relied exclusively on Nintendo for its video game-related posts, it has been the most common target in recent months, and Pokémon franchise, in particular, seems to be a favorite of the social media team. In September, a video of ICE agents detaining people like the original was released Pokémon anime theme song sparked controversy on the White House's TikTok account, using the franchise's “Gotta catch'em all” tagline to draw a parallel between virtual monster collection and federal agents rounding up undocumented immigrants. Responses to all of these posts have been overwhelmingly negative, although they appear to be popular among the MAGA voter base, with the ICE-related video being liked more than 1.9 million times, and the latest Twitter post already generating more than 84,000 likes.