President Donald Trump has announced his own “Patriot Games,” but it didn’t take long for the Democrats and their troller-in-chief, Gavin Newsom, to compare it to something much darker.
In a video released on Thursday, Trump announced a new national competition would take place next year, pitting top high school athletes from across the country against one another.
“In the fall we will host the first-ever Patriot Games, an unprecedented athletic competition that will spotlight the greatest high school athletes from all across America,” the president said in a teaser posted online.
“But I promise there will be no men playing in women’s sports. You’re not going to see that. You’ll see everything but that.”
The event will take place as part of America’s 250th birthday celebrations, alongside other initiatives such as a UFC “fight night” at the White House, a national prayer event, and the possible debut of a $1 commemorative coin bearing Trump’s face.
But it was immediately mocked by Newsom, who responded with a clip from The Hunger Games, the 2012 movie in which a wealthy regime forces 12 poor districts to send their teenagers to fight to the death on live television.
“May the odds be ever in your favor,” Newsom said, referencing the movie’s most iconic line.
Newsom, a possible 2028 presidential contender, also drew comparisons to Trump and Coriolanus Snow, the authoritarian leader of the fictional country of Panem, where the Hunger Games are held.
The Democratic Party also ridiculed the announcement, posting another clip from the film showing hundreds of teens nervously waiting to learn if they had been selected to compete in the horrific event.
Trump’s Patriot Games will be hosted by Freedom250, a newly established subsidiary set up to help plan next year’s national birthday celebration.
But it is not the only fitness initiative the 79-year-old president has planned for sports-loving students.
In July, Trump also announced plans to revive the Presidential Fitness Test, which creates school-based fitness challenges and awards for “excellence in fitness.”
The program, which was shelved in 2012, was introduced by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966, rewarding students who excelled in tests such as the 50-yard dash, shuttle runs, and pull-ups.
Students with the highest fitness scores were then eligible to receive a Presidential Physical Fitness Award.
“It’s going to be a very big thing,” Trump said as he announced he would bring back the initiative.
But Trump’s own health fitness has also come under the spotlight lately, with the aging president often spotted with swollen ankles, a mysteriously bruised hand, and occasional sleepiness on the job.
The White House declined to comment.
