Politics donald trump

Someone invoked the British Antarctic Territory flag to defend the White House’s cringeworthy Greenland penguin meme, but it wasn’t the gotcha he thought

Oonagh Keating. Updated January 26th, 2026

If you’re going to stick your head above the parapet to defend something that’s been widely denounced as utter bilge, you need to double and tripe-check your facts.

That’s not what right-wing commentator John Duffield did when coming out to bat for the White House after they got dragged for thinking Greenland has penguins.

Here’s the post that caused the avalanche of mockery.

Embrace the penguin. With Trump walking into a snowy, mountainous landscape, alongside a penguin that's holding a US flag. The Greenland flag can be seen near the mountains.

And here’s what people with good sense had to say about it.

Even Andrew Neil called them out.

Enter stage right Mr Duffield with this hot take.

British Antarctic Territory. Note the penguin. (The crest contains both a lion and a penguin)

Nathan Fillion looking as though he's about to say something, then thinking better of it

There were at least a couple of problems with his intervention.

Greenland isn’t in Antarctica, and animals on flags don’t necessarily live in the country in question – otherwise Wales would be in big trouble, although the tourism inddustry might be raking it in just from Game of Thrones fans.

Twitter wasn’t backward at coming forward.

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Dr Le Comte de St Germain spotted that John Duffield had missed a trick.

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Reform UK’s London mayoral hopeful aped the embarrassing White House penguin meme, and it was a self-own visible from Greenland

Image John Duffield, Pexels