Uproar over '8647' code near White House, interpreted as call to kill Trump

United States authorities are investigating a large sign displaying the code ‘8647’ on the grass of the National Mall, near the White House in Washington DC. The code has been interpreted by some as a call to kill President Donald Trump. Photographs taken at the scene, as reported by Reuters and Anadolu Agency on Friday (12 June 2026), show the numbers ‘86’ and ‘47’ prominently visible on the grass near the World War II Memorial within the National Mall complex. The giant numbers have begun to fade but remain visible from the air. In a photograph taken by a Reuters photographer from atop the Washington Monument, the numbers eight, six, and seven are still discernible, though the number four is no longer clearly visible. US Park Police said officers responded to reports of vandalism on the west lawn of the Washington Monument. US National Guard personnel were also deployed to the site. It remains unclear exactly how the numbers appeared on the grass and who is responsible for the vandalism. The investigation is being conducted by the US Department of the Interior, which dispatched personnel to the location for a thorough examination. ‘The numbers 86 47 were marked in the grass,’ the department said in a statement. ‘The cause of the discolouration has not yet been determined. Grass samples have been collected for testing. The investigation is ongoing,’ the statement added. Some people say the number ‘86’ is a code referring to violence, while others describe it as common slang originating from restaurants, meaning to get rid of, cancel, or discard something. The number ‘47’ appears to refer to Trump, who is the 47th President of the United States. When the two numbers are combined, some interpret it as ‘kill President Trump’. The White House, in a statement, stressed that it takes potential threats seriously. ‘Anyone involved in or supporting political violence or a culture of assassination must be condemned in the strongest possible terms,’ White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told CBS News. The appearance of the ‘8647’ code is not the first of its kind. The number was previously at the centre of a high-profile criminal case involving former FBI Director James Comey, who was charged by federal prosecutors with threatening Trump based on a photo he posted on social media in 2025 showing seashells arranged on a beach to form the number ‘8647’. Comey deleted the post and explained he did not realise it could be interpreted as a call to violence. Regardless, the number ‘8647’ has since been adopted by Trump’s political opponents as a form of protest against his administration.