Education Department Deletes Video That Compared Trump to a 'Tiger,' the Same Word Churchill Used for Hitler

The Department of Education posted a 19-second video on X on Wednesday, August 26, then deleted it within hours after users pointed out what it actually said.

The clip opened with a scene from the 2017 film Darkest Hour, in which Gary Oldman, playing Winston Churchill, tells advisers pushing him to negotiate with Nazi Germany: "You cannot reason with a tiger when your head is in its mouth." The department's post cut straight from that line to a montage of Trump raising a fist and pointing, set to the rapper BIA's song "WE GO ON," captioned "No one does it like us" with a tiger emoji.

The problem, obvious to anyone who has seen the movie: Churchill's "tiger" is Hitler. The scene is Churchill arguing Britain cannot appease Nazi Germany. By splicing that line directly into footage of Trump, the department's post read as comparing the president to the dictator responsible for the Holocaust.

X's Community Notes feature added the correction fast: "This clip is from the film 'Darkest Hour,' and the 'tiger' in this clip refers to Adolf Hitler." Screenshots spread widely on X even after the department deleted the original post.

What the department says happened

An Education Department spokesperson gave the same statement to multiple outlets, including HuffPost, Newsweek and The Daily Beast: "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. The Department has removed it from all social media platforms."

The department did not name the staffer or say how long the post was live before deletion. There's no indication anyone has been disciplined or fired over it, and no source reports any further departmental response beyond the removal and the one-line explanation.

That explanation is plausible on its face. The clip is built around a TikTok trend format that pairs a viral audio hook with a dramatic reveal, commonly used online for sports highlights and hype videos, not history lessons. One widely shared post noted the department's edit closely mirrored an existing fan-made video hyping golfer Tiger Woods, whose nickname makes the "tiger" framing land as a compliment rather than a warning. If a staffer grabbed a trending sound without watching the source film, a garbled, historically illiterate mashup is exactly what you'd expect to come out the other end.

The reaction, and where it split

Reaction on X ranged from mockery to accusations of intent. Journalist Benjamin S. Weiss asked, "Isn't the 'tiger' Churchill is referring to in this clip Nazi Germany?" in a post that drew more than 31,000 likes, according to The Daily Beast. Others were less charitable about motive. Writer Pedro Gonzalez, described by Yahoo News as a former Trump supporter who has broken with the movement, argued the post wasn't accidental at all: "The right plays this game where it winks at white supremacists and even fascists, like this post does... Do you get the very subtle joke here? Nudge nudge wink wink."

That is an accusation of intentional signaling, not a proven fact. No source in this story offers evidence the department meant to invoke Hitler on purpose, and the more mundane explanation, a junior staffer chasing a trending format without doing five minutes of homework, fits the facts just as well if not better. Treat Gonzalez's claim as his interpretation, not an established finding.

The Headquarters account, linked to Kamala Harris's political operation, took a more literal shot at the department's staffing: "They fired the employees who help fund teachers and students but kept the taxpayer-funded fancam editor." That's a real jab worth noting, but it's a political dig, not a documented staffing claim tied to specific personnel numbers in any of the sourcing here.

Coverage differences worth flagging

Most outlets covering this, including Newsweek, HuffPost, The Daily Beast, Raw Story and Yahoo News/Mediaite, ran essentially the same story built around the same statement and the same social reactions, which suggests a single underlying wire of quotes rather than independently reported threads. Hindustan Times added one detail others didn't emphasize as clearly: the department's Trump montage was set to BIA's song "WE GO ON," a small but real production detail that shows the post was a deliberately produced hype video, not a hasty accident in every respect, even if the underlying context was clearly missed.

What's unresolved

No source has named the staffer responsible or confirmed whether the department reviewed the clip before posting or after backlash forced the deletion. The department hasn't said whether it will change its internal review process for social content going forward. Given that the Trump administration has leaned into meme-style, TikTok-format government messaging, this is at least the second high-profile stumble in a week, following backlash over a White House "Magic Deportation Bus" graphic modeled on The Magic School Bus, according to Newsweek. Whether the Education Department or other agencies tighten pre-publication review after this is something to watch, not something any source has confirmed yet.