Cards Against Humanity avoids tariffs with an edition that explains all the jokes, says 'this holiday season… don’t give Donald Trump a f***ing cent'

US President Donald Trump holds a chart as he delivers remarks on reciprocal tariffs during an event in the Rose Garden entitled "Make America Wealthy Again" at the White House in Washington, DC, on April 2, 2025.
(Image credit: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

Cards Against Humanity is a party game where the humour revolves around fill-in-the-blank statements on cards, which players then complete with taboo or offensive terms. It's a very fun game, if you get the right kind of group together, and frankly a little bit of a tonic in a world where censoriousness feels like a passion project for some.

The company behind the game has now announced Cards Against Humanity Explains the Joke, a special edition where every card explains why it is funny. The reason? This makes it an "informational product" rather than a game, meaning it is "100% EXEMPT FROM DONALD TRUMP’S STUPID TARIFFS!"

I'm going to warn you in advance, in case it's not clear, that the people behind this really don't like Donald Trump. So read on at your own risk.

"Trump is Going to Fuck Christmas" opens the announcement, before going on to explain that "like a teen girl at a beauty pageant, Christmas is in grave danger because of Donald Trump.

"In stores across America, the price of toys, games, clothes, and food are skyrocketing, all thanks to our demented president and his dumbass tariffs. But what if you didn’t have to surrender a chunk of your Christmas budget to Trump and his cabinet of ass-kissers and ball-fondlers?"

Well now you can avoid that by buying Cards Against Humanity Explains the Joke for Christmas. Pre-orders are live now for $25 until October 15, after which they won't make any more, and 100% of the profits go to the American Library Association in order to help fight censorship.

So for example, one card in Cards Against Humanity says "This week's mass shooting." This now comes accompanied by the following explanation: "America experiences so many mass shootings and so normalizes them that the non-specificity of this joke heightens its comedic realism. Sad fact: this card was once 'This year's mass shooting.'"

Every joke is now accompanied by an explanation of "why it's funny, and any relevant social, political, or historical context." You can't play Cards Against Humanity Explains the Joke, but being a "historico-philosophical analysis that is very serious and definitely not a game" gets that all-important classification of "information material" and thus means no tariffs (the cards are printed overseas). Brilliantly, the company has already obtained a ruling to this effect from US Customs and Border Patrol.

President Donald Trump holds up an executive order.

(Image credit: Anna Moneymaker via Getty Images)

Then there's an FAQ, which contains some gems such as: "What if DHS Secretary and Dog Murderer Kristi Noem gets mad and decides that Cards Against Humanity Explains the Joke is not informational material?" Yes, Noem actually did kill her 14 month-old dog Cricket.

Answer: "She can fuck right off, because we got a binding ruling from Trump’s own government that confirms this product is informational and 100% exempt from his stupid tariffs."

The only bum note is that this is not available for overseas customers: "This is an American promotion for freedom-loving, tariff-hating Americans."

This is not the first time that the Cards Against Humanity lot have picked a fight with the Trump administration. In 2017 it bought land in Texas on the Mexican border, purely to make it more difficult for Trump to build his beloved wall. Last year it sued Elon Musk for $15 million for encroaching on that same land. Like the game, it's maybe not big or clever. Sure is funny though.

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Rich Stanton
Senior Editor

Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."

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