Buckingham Palace wants the Queen off the Trump Train.
The palace has requested that an edited image of the Queen be removed from the side of a bus dubbed the Trump Train, BuzzFeed News reported on Wednesday. In the picture, the 95-year-old royal appears to be wearing one of former President Donald Trump’s signature “Make America Great Again” campaign hats and a brooch referring to the QAnon conspiracy theory.
“Representations asking for the photo’s removal have been made,” the palace confirmed to HuffPost on Thursday.
It’s unclear if pro-Trump businessman Buddy Hall, who drives the vehicle across the US in continued support of the ex-president, has responded to the palace’s request.
The original image, below, was taken in Wales in April 2011:
The “MAGA” version has apparently been on the bus for more than a year. However, it only appeared to capture the palace’s attention after the vehicle appeared outside an America First rally in The Villages retirement community in Florida last week.
At the event, Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican politician, peddled Trump’s election conspiracies.
Website hosting service GoDaddy also asked for its name to be removed from the bus on Monday.
“GoDaddy doesn’t sponsor the bus and we don’t have any advertising relationships with the bus/owner whatsoever,” a spokesperson told HuffPost. “They don’t have permission to use our brand on the bus and we’ve asked them to remove.”
Hall said he wanted to show his appreciation for the company.
Other edited images on the bus show Trump as actor Sylvester Stallone’s boxer alter ego Rocky Balboa, as well as former President Ronald Reagan wearing a “MAGA” hat. Trump’s as-yet-unconfirmed 2024 run for the White House is also promoted on the vehicle.
Hall has indicated in videos on Facebook, though, that he will soon update the display. He said he’ll remove a photo of former Vice President Mike Pence following his refusal to back Trump’s bid to overturn the 2020 election.
