White House’s Troll Attempt Backfires With Humiliating Retreat
The White House has pulled its “Build The Wall” game after the company behind a classic franchise raised concerns.
Evelyn Hockstein/REUTERS
The White House has pulled its “Build The Wall” video game after The Tetris Company warned the Trump administration over potential copyright infringement.
“Build The Wall” disappeared from the administration’s online arcade on Tuesday, just four days after Tetris said it had no role in creating the game and had not authorized use of its intellectual property.
The game required players to arrange falling blocks to construct a wall intended to “protect the border.” It was one of five retro-style titles launched to promote Trump administration policies. The other four remain online.
Those include “Flappy Bill,” “Supply Line,” “Trump Savings Tycoon,” and “Rio Run.”
The White House has not publicly explained why it removed the title. It came after Tetris said in a September 4 statement that it was “not involved in the creation” of the game and took “copyright infringement very seriously.”
“At Tetris we believe in the power of connection and building people together, not dividing them,” the company said at the time.
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“To our fans everywhere: we love you, we see you, and we’re grateful to have you in our community.”
“Build The Wall” had players build their own border wall.
The White House
The Daily Beast has approached the White House for comment. The Tetris Company has not said if it will pursue legal action.
The Tetris Company has previously taken legal action against games it argued infringed its intellectual property. In 2012, it reached an undisclosed settlement with the makers of the iPhone game Mino after alleging that the title copied the look and feel of Tetris.
The launch formed part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to incorporate video game aesthetics and popular gaming culture into its political communications.
In October 2025, the official White House X account drew criticism after posting an AI-generated image of President Trump in a suit from the video game Halo.
The administration also used Halo imagery in a video posted on 6 March that combined footage of U.S. military strikes in Iran with clips from film and television. The video included a clip of the protagonist Master Chief saying, “finishing this fight.”
Steve Downes, the voice actor behind Master Chief, condemned the video in a now-deleted tweet and called for “the producers of this disgusting and juvenile war porn” to remove his voice from the footage.
“Let me make this crystal clear,” Downes said. “I did not participate in nor was I consulted, nor do I endorse the use of my voice in this video, or the message it conveys.”
The White House also celebrated the Trump administration’s lethal strikes on Iran in March with footage from the 2023 video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, which then transitioned into footage of real strikes conducted on Iran by the U.S.
In March, The Pokémon Company International criticized the use of its imagery after a White House meme incorporated a small version of Pikachu alongside the phrase “Make America Great Again.”
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