Trump kicks off new year with ‘Sanctions are coming’ poster

President Donald Trump returned from the holidays and convened a Cabinet meeting with his team on Wednesday.

But the star of the meeting, so to speak, was a large mock movie poster featuring his photograph and the words “SANCTIONS ARE COMING, NOVEMBER 4.”

It mimicked the HBO’s “Game of Thrones” and played off the show’s “Winter is coming” refrain.

The poster sat, without explanation, in the middle of the Cabinet Room table at the meeting, in which lasted over an hour and Trump talked about the government shutdown, the holidays at the White House, and a little about Iran.

But the poster went without mentioning. Trump tweeted the same poster in November when he was going to reimpose sanctions on Iran.

The recent poster includes November 4 as the date, while the earlier version in the tweet has November 5.

Thursday morning White House advisor Kellyanne Conway spoke on Fox & Friends and was asked about the poster.

“What was with the poster yesterday on the table?” host Brian Kilmeade asked Conway.

“That’s the President saying sanctions are coming November 4th,” Conway answered. “I think the President speaking for 95 minutes and holding forth on any number of issues shows his transparency and shows he’s always willing to have the press in the room.”

She didn’t clarify more than that.

Some reporters at the meeting posted to Twitter about the poster.

CBS News White House reporter Kathryn Watson posted a photo of the poster.

— Kathryn Watson (@kathrynw5) January 2, 2019blockquote>

Jeff Mason, White House Correspondent for Reuters, tweeted the photo with Trump’s comment on the wall he wants for the U.S. Mexico border.

— Jeff Mason (@jeffmason1) January 2, 2019blockquote>

Global News reporter Josh K. Elliott wondered about the use of the catchphrase.

— Josh K. Elliott (@joshkelliott) January 2, 2019blockquote>

HBO, for their part, responded with a tweet, the first time the poster popped up:

— HBO (@HBO) November 2, 2018blockquote>