New anti-Trump billboard goes up on Grand Avenue

Mass deportations, rising inflation and the passage of the "Big Beautiful Bill" make it hard to find humor in the current political atmosphere.

But Karen Fiorito hopes her latest project, “Swamp King,” will bring a smile to your face.

A reference to President Donald Trump’s 2015 campaign promise that he’d “drain the swamp,” only to become the swamp itself, the California artist's piece is a smattering of various disasters that the Trump administration has directed over the last few months. After more than a decade of giving unelected billionaires massive amounts of power, enjoying fancy gifts from foreign nations and getting thousands of minions to wear his signature red hats, he’s the “Swamp King” in Fiorito’s latest piece.

“You need to make fun of these people,” Fiorito tells Phoenix New Times. “Not only for our own morale, camaraderie and feeling connected to others that we’re not alone, but humor is one of the most powerful weapons when it comes to dictators.”

For years, Fiorito’s anti-Trump artworks have graced a 40-foot-wide billboard along Grand Avenue between 10th and 11th avenues. She’s rendered Trump as a giant baby playing with blocks in celebration of January 6th, as a president with dollar signs that look like swastikas with bombs behind him, and as Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s puppet while he does a Nazi salute.
These various projects have been a collaboration between Fiorito and Beatrice Moore, a Phoenix artist and historic preservation advocate who owns the billboard. Fiorito began work on the “Swamp King” billboard in late May. It went up the afternoon of July 3, just in time to put a dent in Trump’s Independence Day.

“They hate being made fun of,” Fiorito said. “It’s the thing they hate the most.”

Since Trump’s second term in office began in January, it’s been months of erratic and contradictory policies, which Fiorito aimed to capture. The billboard reflects the chaos with a maximalist composition depicting a naked Trump wearing a golden crown, surrounded by representations of his failures and missteps. He rules over the swamp that he said he’d clean up, but only made stinkier.

“We really wanted to get the idea across of the swamp being filled with all of this corruption and illegal stuff going on,” Fiorito says. “He’s the most corrupt president we’ve ever seen.”

Fiorito characterizes him as a “really terrible person” who “thinks he’s a king.” This shines through the hunched-over character sporting an obnoxious gold Trump watch and a gaudy gold cryptocurrency — or “shit coin” — necklace while he holds a Trump-branded gold phone.

An upside-down American flag flies above Trump and his garbage-strewn waters. A vandalized Tesla slowly sinks to his right as a bomb explodes in the distance. Floating around him are tariffs, an “Art of the Steal” memoir, a Qatari jet and highly unpopular “Big, Beautiful” reconciliation bill. Also in the frame: an alligator wearing a MAGA hat, a paper boat made out of money and a young bird flu victim.

“They just want to make money for themselves and their cronies,” Fiorito says. “Whether they blow up the world or not, they don’t really care.”
The constant jaw-dropping actions of the administration keep Fiorito busy. Ideas for her next billboard projects, perhaps coming sooner rather than later, keep coming fast and frantic.

“Usually I’ll put up a billboard and it’ll last like a year or so,” Fioritio says. “But now it’s like every couple months, ‘oh well, that’s outdated.'”