President Trump answered questions alongside White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt as he left the White House on Wednesday.
President Trump answered questions alongside White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt as he left the White House on Wednesday.Win McNamee/Photographer: Win McNamee/Getty
The video clip is a favorite of Kenny Bell’s friends: The University of Nebraska receiver lays a punishing blind-side block on a Wisconsin defender during the 2012 Big Ten title game. But the clip found new life - and new meaning - on Friday when the White House posted that play, and other devastating pro and college collisions, in a montage that juxtaposed football highlights with footage of U.S. military strikes in Iran.
Bell, now retired from pro football at 34, said he was disgusted with the montage set to AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck.”
“For that play to be associated with bombing human beings makes me sick,” Bell told The Washington Post. “I don’t want anything to do with images like that.”
The Trump White House is by now accustomed to the objections of those who have not appreciated their likenesses or works being used in political social media messaging. Another recent White House montage hyping the invasion of Iran, utilizing war movie clips, drew condemnation from actor Ben Stiller, who said he had “no interest in being part of your propaganda machine.”
The football montage, which was still online as of Thursday afternoon and by that time had collected over 10 million views on X, was met with criticism from members of the college and pro football community, not simply for the comparison of war and sport, but for the NFL’s and other rightsholders’ failure to object to the use of the images.
Touchdown pic.twitter.com/aDNdqBdRzG
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 6, 2026
The NFL, which did not respond to requests for comment for this story, is typically protective of its copyrighted material online, limiting even broadcast partners’ reproduction of game footage.
Copyright complaints relying on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act can be filed directly to X via its website, and the NFL has historically exercised the option prolifically. In 2015, the league’s DMCA takedown demands led to Twitter suspending accounts for two sports media sites, Deadspin and SB Nation. And last year, either the league or Fox went on a spree of takedown requests of videos and GIFs depicting an apparent blown call in a marquee early-season Chiefs-Eagles showdown. (Information surrounding takedown requests, including the identity of the submitter, usually is not public.)
Most of the clips used in the White House football-bombing montage are NFL hits - defensive backs and linebackers including Ray Lewis, Ed Reed and Kam Chancellor flying downhill to smack ballcarriers, receivers and blockers. Both Reed and Lewis have condemned the video, with Reed posting on X: “I do not approve this message.”
Mason Foster, a former Tampa Bay Buccaneers linebacker who played eight seasons in the NFL, is shown crashing into New England Patriots receiver Chad Ochocinco during a preseason game in 2011. A split-second later, a bomb ignites a rocky landscape in Iran.
Foster, who told The Post he deleted his social media accounts years ago, said he was shocked after he was sent the video. He hadn’t realized the government was releasing footage of war destruction online, much less involving him and other NFL players.
“I’m at a loss for words,” Foster said this week. “It’s a strange feeling, seeing those clips like that. I don’t think anything going on in the world today is as simple as a great football play or a hit. I’m still wrapping my head around it.
“When people are losing their lives, I don’t think it can compare to a game.”
Both Bell and Foster said they believed the White House should remove the video, and if it doesn’t, the rightsholders including the NFL should achieve removal through legal means. The White House declined to comment on the players’ concerns.
“I don’t think I’m even allowed to use that clip, because I don’t own it," Bell said. “So I would like the NFL, the networks, to treat the White House like they’d treat me. To re-instill some faith in these institutions, you have to start holding our leaders accountable.”
Having the video removed on legal grounds may not be an option for the broadcasters and the NFL, said Rebecca Tushnet, a First Amendment professor at Harvard Law School. It depends on a judge’s interpretation; courts have historically been hesitant to let copyright owners assert infringement in political ads and political speech, she said.
“Once you’re making an argument, no matter how offensive an argument it is, courts are much more willing to find fair use,” Tushnet said. “The argument here seems to be: Sports and killing people are fun things that Americans are good at. That is, although repulsive, an argument.”
But that doesn’t fully explain the rightsholders’ decision to stay silent on the videos, she said. “This White House is vindictive and bullying,” Tushnet said. “So, if you’re the NFL, why tempt its wrath?”
Said Bell: “When people see you just kissing the ring of this administration, the people responsible for the success of these organizations, the players, feel betrayed.” (Other players featured in the video did not respond to requests for comment.)
Bell, who was drafted in the fifth round in 2015 but suffered a preseason hamstring injury and retired before logging a reception, said the clips recalled an experience in college when he was introduced to U.S. military training and values. During his junior and senior seasons at Nebraska, Bell said, the football team invited retired U.S. Marine Eric Kapitulik and his training company, the Program, to work with the football team in the late summer countdown to Week 1.
Players lifted and moved heavy logs in unison, ran sprints in weighted vests and carried teammates across the football field. In one session, players were told to swim the length of a pool in full sweatsuits. Bell said he swam underneath a player who couldn’t swim, helping to ferry him across.
“They whooped our butts for 72 hours,” Bell said. “It made me think differently about a lot of things.”
The veterans advised that effective teammates “lead from the back,” Bell said. That meant doing unglamorous things like laying devastating blocks as a wide receiver. The experience made Bell think differently about war-fighting analogies in football.
“I think it is very important to draw the line somewhere and this video is a really good example of where to draw the line,” Bell said. “The killing of people is something that’s very, very serious and should not be taken lightly.
“It scares me for our society that you can be scrolling through social media looking at dog photos and suddenly you’re seeing someone blown up.”