The official US Department of Education account attempted to produce a dramatic tribute to Donald Trump. Unfortunately, nobody involved appears to have checked who the “tiger” in its chosen film clip represented.
The department posted a 19-second video on X carrying the caption:
“No one does it like us. 🐅”
It opened with Gary Oldman playing Winston Churchill in the 2017 film Darkest Hour and declaring:
“You cannot reason with a tiger when your head is in its mouth.”
The music then changed and the video cut directly to a montage of Trump raising his fist and pointing towards the camera.
It was apparently intended to portray the president as powerful, intimidating and impossible for his opponents to contain.
There was one rather substantial problem. In the scene used by the department, the “tiger” represents Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany.
The context somebody forgot to check
Darkest Hour follows Churchill during the political crisis of May 1940, as German forces advanced through Europe and members of the British government considered seeking peace talks through Benito Mussolini.
The line comes as Churchill rejects the idea that Britain could safely negotiate with Hitler while Nazi Germany held an overwhelming military advantage.
In other words, the department placed footage of Churchill describing Hitler as a tiger immediately before footage presenting Trump as that same tiger.
This was not a subtle interpretation supplied by hostile viewers. It was the meaning of the scene.
To make matters worse for an account belonging to the Department of Education, the supposed Churchill quotation is not a documented remark from the wartime prime minister. It was dialogue used in Anthony McCarten’s screenplay for the film.
The department therefore reached for a fictional history lesson, misunderstood it and accidentally produced a video appearing to compare its own president with Hitler.
Department admits staffer did not understand the clip
The post was deleted after users began explaining the context beneath it, but copies had already been saved and circulated across social media.
Journalist @taliaotg shared a recording and wrote:
“The official U.S. Department of Education account posted, then deleted, a video positively comparing Trump to Hitler.
“Captioned ‘No one does it like us’ with a tiger emoji, the video opens with a scene from Darkest Hour wherein Winston Churchill refers to Hitler as a tiger.”
Genuinely cannot tell if people are this stupid or theyre just fucking fascists at this point
— girlfail supreme, no beans (@soundslikeknee) August 27, 2026
A spokesperson subsequently told the Daily Beast that the video had been removed from all the department’s social media accounts.
The spokesperson said:
“The video, based on a trending sound on TikTok, was created and posted by an ED staffer who did not understand the context of the video.”
That explanation confirms the comparison was accidental, although it raises the question of why an official government account was publishing political fan edits built around film clips it had not understood.
The format appears to have been borrowed from an existing Tiger Woods edit. In that version, the use of the word “tiger” leads into footage of a golfer who is actually named Tiger.
Replacing Woods with Trump removed the joke while keeping Churchill’s reference to Hitler intact.
The internet delivers the missing history lesson
The fact that the error came from the Department of Education did not escape people responding to it.
@BenjaminSWeiss asked the question which someone inside the department might usefully have raised before publication:
“Isn’t the ‘tiger’ Churchill is referring to in this clip Nazi Germany?”
@HQNewsNow focused on the department’s priorities:
“They fired the employees who help fund teachers and students but kept the taxpayer-funded fancam editor.”
@realbuildershed was baffled by the format itself:
“WHY THE FUCK ARE THEY POSTING WINSTON CHURCHILL EDITS”
@watsondci combined the historical error with the name of the department responsible:
“What does any of this have to do with education?
“If you all were educated you’d know Churchill was comparing the tiger to Nazis, you fucking idiots.”
@zedsamcat highlighted both mistakes:
“Not only is this not a real Churchill quote, the ‘tiger’ Churchill is referring to is Adolf Hitler.”
And @VolsAF offered the final assessment:
“Flawless. No notes. This is why we need to educate people because uneducated idiots grow up and post this while thinking ‘this’ll own the libs’.”
An awkward time for a government history failure
The mistake came during a period in which official Trump administration accounts have increasingly published memes, AI-generated images and short-form videos more commonly associated with partisan campaign pages.
It also came after Trump signed an executive order directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to facilitate the closure of the department “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law”.
The department remains responsible for federal student aid, education funding and enforcing civil rights protections in schools and colleges.
Publishing a Trump fan edit was already difficult to connect with any of those functions. Publishing one that relied upon misunderstood film dialogue made it considerably worse.
On the same day, the White House attempted to taunt Canada by posting an image of a bald eagle pinning down a Canada goose. Viewers later traced the image to footage in which the goose escaped, fought back and drove the eagle away.
Two official accounts had tried to portray the Trump administration as dominant. One showed the American symbol losing to Canada. The other accidentally cast Trump in the role of Hitler.
It was not the most successful day for government communications.
Joe Connor is a UK-based reporter specialising in politics, public policy, and national affairs. He has previously contributed to publications including The London Economic (JOE Media Group) and Spotted News.
At The Daily Britain, he covers Westminster politics, elections, and breaking political developments, alongside in-depth analysis of policy decisions and their real-world impact.
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