Abstract

The present paper studies the projection of conceptual metaphors WAR IS A GAME and AMERICAN IDENTITY IS AUTHORITY in the discourse of President Donald Trump, during the heated discussion with Volodymyr Zelenskyy that took place in the Oval Office on Friday, March 1^st 2025.  Relying on cognitive metaphor theory (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980; Turner, 1989; Gibbs, 1994; Fauconnier, 1997, et al.), the study decodes the crucial role of cognitive processes in the construction of identity within the political discourse. The article seeks to point out how discourse reveals self-representation and social action, how preferences for certain vocabulary contribute to the construction of the speakers’ or a nation’s identity, how certain discourses are more permeated by cultural hegemony (Gramsci, 1929) than others and more precisely about American hegemony.