WTF?! The White House has posted a video on its official X account that shows real footage of the US military campaign against Iran. Unusually, the clip begins with a killstreak animation taken straight from 2023's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.
The X account included the words "Courtesy of the Red, White & Blue" in the post. The video starts with a player activating a CoD: MW3 MGB (Mass Guided Bombs) killstreak. It's basically the game's secret nuke – which is somewhat concerning given its use here – activated by achieving 30 kills in a single life.
Courtesy of the Red, White & Blue. pic.twitter.com/kTO0DZ56IJ
– The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 4, 2026
Once activated, a 10-second countdown triggers, then the strike hits, everyone gets wiped, and the match ends immediately with a win for the team that called it in.
The rest of the video consists of several real clips showing US military strikes on Iran with added kill scores.
It's not known whether Activision, Xbox, or Microsoft gave permission for the Call of Duty footage to be used this way.
The Trump administration is no stranger to featuring games in official social media posts. The Department of Homeland security posted a video montage of ICE raids last year, set to the theme song of the original Pokémon TV show and featuring the caption "Gotta Catch 'Em All."
Gotta Catch 'Em All. pic.twitter.com/qCvflkJGmB
– Homeland Security (@DHSgov) September 22, 2025
There was also a DHS post that included an ICE recruitment video featuring Master Chief driving a Warthog. The caption read, "Finishing the fight" and "Destroy the flood." The White House later posted an AI-generated image that showed President Trump as Master Chief.
Finishing this fight. pic.twitter.com/6Ezq9NUqMq
– Homeland Security (@DHSgov) October 27, 2025
While not the case here, we've also seen video game footage passed off as real during conflicts on several occasions. Arma 3 and War Thunder clips were spread on social media under the guise of actual footage when Israel attacked Iran last year – and it's happening again.
O momento em que o avançado caça israelense F-35 foi interceptado e destruído pelos sistemas de defesa do exército da República Islâmica do Irã; veja VÍDEO pic.twitter.com/V6H1dwAq8r
– BLOG ALDO ALMEIDA (@BLOGALDOALMEIDA) June 15, 2025
In October 2022, a clip supposedly showing the Ukrainian military striking Russian Army tanks also turned out to be Arma 3 footage. Part of the same clip was used in a video from 2020 that claimed it was an American anti-aircraft weapon destroying an Iranian missile.
There was also a case in 2018 when Russian TV showed an Arma 3 clip that it claimed was actual footage from the Syrian war (below).
It's not just Arma 3. In 2019, a Pakistani politician was convinced a clip from GTA V showing a plane landing and narrowly missing an oil tanker on the runway was real. He even praised the pilot's "immense skill."
Terrorist attack in Algeria, which fails to work because of the pilot's immense skill pic.twitter.com/vnHXzjSULk
– Future Science (@OrgPhysics) July 9, 2019
Back in 2016, the Russian government tweeted an image from Command & Conquer to warn of extremists in Syria, though it did add an "image used for illustration purposes only" disclaimer. In 2017, however, the country's MOD said a screengrab of a promotional video for mobile title AC-130 Gunship Simulator: Special Ops Squadron was "irrefutable evidence" of the US helping ISIS. We've also seen CNN use Fallout 4 to illustrate Russian hacking activities.
. @mod_russia: Extremists near Aleppo received several truckloads of chemical ammo. pic.twitter.com/scCEMXRvwH
– Russian Embassy, UK (@RussianEmbassy) May 12, 2016
The situation got so bad that in 2022, Arma 3 developer Bohemia Interactive posted a series of tips on how to distinguish real footage from Arma 3 gameplay clips.