The Queen Got a QAnon Makeover on the ‘Trump Train’ and She’s Not Amused

How does a picture of Queen Elizabeth II wearing a red MAGA hat and a QAnon brooch end up on the side of a bus known as the “Trump Train” that has spent the last year travelling all across the country trying to get former President Donald Trump reelected?

Simple: The owner of the bus just Googled “cute Trump pictures,” found the image, and decided to slap it on the side of his bus, which also features a huge image of Trump as Rocky Balboa.

That’s what the owner of the bus Buddy Hall told British broadcaster ITV News after it was revealed Buckingham Palace had requested that Hall remove the image.

Hall claims he has had no such contact from the Royal Family, but said the image was going to be removed anyway as part of a long-planned overhaul of the bus’s design.

“Even if the Queen wrote me and said, ‘Please keep my picture on there, I love it,’ we are still taking it off,” Hall told Salon. “It's been in the designs now for two months now.”

The image of the Queen, which is a doctored version of a photo taken in 2011, shows her wearing a red hat with the words ‘Make America Great Again’ emblazoned on it, as well as a brooch in the shape of a Q, the symbol of the QAnon movement.

I did not design it, I just went to Google and typed in ‘cute Trump pictures’ and that is one of many things that came up,” Hall told ITV.

The bus has been touring the country since January 2020, attending campaign rallies in support of then President Trump. The doctored image of the Queen went unnoticed until last weekend, when the bus showed up in Florida for an America First event that was headlined by Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has voiced support for QAnon in the past, and Rep. Matt Gaetz, the Florida Republican who is reportedly being investigated by the Department of Justice for sex-crimes involving underage girls.

When asked about the image of the Queen on the bus, Greene and Gaetz both laughed it off.

“You do know what a meme is right?” Greene told Buzzfeed, while a spokesperson for Gaetz told the same outlet: “We’re sure Her Majesty has greater concerns than motor vehicle traffic in Florida.”

But the Queen was not the only one unhappy with the design. The web-hosting firm GoDaddy, who this week asked Hall to remove its logo from the side of the bus.

“GoDaddy doesn’t sponsor the bus and we don’t have any advertising relationships with the bus/owner whatsoever,” GoDaddy spokesman Dan Race told HuffPost in a statement Monday. “They don’t have permission to use our brand on the bus and we’ve asked them to remove [it].”

Hall said the reason the GoDaddy logo was on the bus was because he wanted “to show my appreciation” after the company “built us a nice website.”

On the Trump Train’s official Facebook page, Hall posted a video earlier this week describing the bus’ new ‘Trump 2024’ design which will feature a line up of Trump sycophants, QAnon boosters, and conspiracy theorists.

They include Donald Trump Jr., Florida Gov. Ron deSantis, right-wing commentator Candace Owens, Sen. Rand Paul, disgraced former national security adviser-turned-QAnon hero Michael Flynn, and MyPillow CEO and conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell.

Designs shared with Salon also featured Fox News host Sean Hannity and Sen. Ted Cruz.

But one person who won’t be appearing in the new design is former Vice President Mike Pence, who Hall has called a “traitor” for certifying the election results on the day of the Capitol insurrection, Jan. 6. 

“We were going to put Pence under the bus, but he don’t even qualify to be there,” Hall said in another video posted to Facebook. “I think he took a check from China. It would be nothing to give him $5-6 million to do what he did.”

Hall raised the money to buy the bus last year by selling pro-Trump shirts, hats, and souvenirs. He also tried to raise money for the vehicle through a crowdfunding campaign, but to date that has raised just $855 out of a goal of $10,000.

Hall said earlier this week that it costs $800 in fuel every three days to keep the bus on the road adding that the bus cost him $30,000 this year alone on maintenance, upkeep, and repairs.

But the cost of the new design—$14,000—has been covered by one of Trump’s closest allies and one of the biggest boosters of the stolen election conspiracy theory: Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy. 

“He wants us to put: ‘President Donald J. Trump loves Newsmax TV.’ And the ‘o’ in the love will be a heart,” Hall said in the Facebook video.