The White House added a satirical article lampooning the president’s newly unveiled budget proposal to its 1600 Daily website Friday morning.
The White House also emailed the Washington Post parody piece to thousands of readers in a daily update.
The author of the story, Post humorist Alexandra Petri, who is really quite funny, told the Washington Examiner she is flattered the White House highlighted her work.
“I am just honored to be a trusted news source! I hope they will keep reading what I write,” Petri said. “Or start reading, as the case may be.”
The satirical item cited Friday morning by the White House is titled, “Trump’s budget makes perfect sense and will fix America, and I will tell you why.”
“This budget will make America a lean, mean fighting machine with bulging, rippling muscles and not an ounce of fat. America has been weak and soft for too long,” Petri wrote.
“BUT HOW WILL I SURVIVE ON THIS BUDGET? you may be wondering. I AM A HUMAN CHILD, NOT A COSTLY FIGHTER JET. You may not survive, but that is because you are SOFT and WEAK, something this budget is designed to eliminate,” she added.
The article then goes through a list of federal agencies facing budget cuts, and jokingly explains why the proposed measures are actually a good thing.
For example:
Agriculture Department: NO MORE OF THIS NAMBY-PAMBY “GATHERING” NONSENSE. We will be HUNTERS again. This is also why we are cutting the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children: Let them FIGHT for their meat or have NONE.
Commerce Department: This will lose its funding to prepare people for coastal disasters, because in the future we will all be so strong that we can stare down the sea and make it recede by flexing our bulging muscles.
The satirical report appeared shortly after its publication on the White House’s 1600 Daily website, which aims to provide users with “news, events and updates” from the Oval Office.
It’s possible the White House got the joke, and that the article appeared online as a gag. To believe that, however, would require an extraordinary act of faith.
Had White House staffers read the article before directing thousands of readers to its existence, they would’ve known it was the exact opposite of positive coverage for Trump’s budget. What possible reason would they have had to include the article if they knew it was a joke? The simplest explanation is, of course, also the most likely: They didn’t read it.
A White House spokesman did not respond to the Examiner’s request for comment.
