Inflatable Trump Chicken "Chicken Don" Returns to Washington DC for 9th Anniversary, latest leg of 2026 Tour

The inflatable Trump chicken known as Chicken Don — a 30-foot satirical balloon depicting the President as a chicken — returns to Washington, DC 22-23 August, 2026, at the same time as the an IndyCar race takes place nearby on the National Mall in DC. This marks nine years since the protest art piece first appeared outside the White House in 2017. The Washington DC stop continues the inflatable's 2026 tour, staged at Constitution Avenue NW and 10th Street, following earlier dates in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Copenhagen.

The piece is the creation of documentary filmmaker and protest artist Taran Singh Brar, who trained in molecular and cell biology at UC Berkeley before turning to activism-driven filmmaking. Since 2017, Chicken Don has become a fixture of anti-Trump protest, photographed everywhere from outside the White House to UN headquarters in Geneva, mocking the President as a "coward" for allegedly avoiding the release of his tax returns and standing up to Vladimir Putin.

The latest version riffs directly on the viral "Trump Always Chickens Out" jab: billed as the "TACO — Trump Always Craps Out" tour, it pushes the satire further by styling the President's hair as a poop emoji, tied to reports that he is chickening out of his BBC lawsuit rather than disclose his finances.

"Nine years in, the joke still works because it doesn't ask anyone to be afraid, just protest. Washington is the seat of what we're satirising, so it felt right to close out this summer's run here." — Taran Singh Brar