White House Easter Bunny

About

White House Easter Bunny refers to the costumed Easter Bunny that appears at the annual White House Easter Egg Roll.

Origin

The White House Easter Egg Roll has been a presidential tradition since April 22nd, 1879, when President Rutherford B. Hayes hosted the first celebration on Easter Monday, allowing children onto the White House grounds to roll Easter eggs.

In April 1969, the White House Easter Bunny made its first appearance at the Easter Egg Roll, when one of First Lady Pat Nixon's staff members dressed as the Easter Bunny to entertain children.^[1][2]

Spread

Sean Spicer Easter Bunny

On March 3rd, 2017, Twitter user @JordanUhl^[3] posted a picture of White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer dressed as the White House Easter Bunny. The picture comes from when Spicer served as assistant United States trade representative for media and public affairs in the Bush administration and took on the duties of Easter Bunny.^[4] The post received more than 500 retweets and 800 likes.

Spicer later acknowledged his role as the Easter Bunny in a March 28th tweet,^[5] shown below, which received more than 1,300 retweets and 2,400 likes.

On April 15th, 2017, Melissa McCarthy parodied Sean Spicer's performance as the Easter Bunny as well as his infamous Hitler gaffe on Saturday Night Live.

2017 White House Easter Bunny Roast

On April 17th, President Donald Trump hosted the 139th annual White House Easter Egg Roll. As Trump welcomed visitors to the event, he delivered a speech about the event and his administration while standing next to a costumed Easter Bunny.

Later that day, Twitter user @BradJaffy^[6] posted a video Trump and the Easter Bunny together under the caption
“'We're right on track. You see what’s happening,' President Trump tells a crowd of children while standing with the Easter Bunny." The tweet received more than 1,900 retweets and 3,200 likes within the first three hours.

Throughout the day, other users made jokes about the image of Trump and the Easter Bunny standing side by side.

On April 17th, Twitter published a Moment,^[7] documenting the tweets about the Easter Bunny Roast.

2019 Revival

On April 22nd, 2019, the White House held the 141st Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House (video below).

During the event, President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump were photographed with a person in an Easter Bunny costume. The image of the Trumps with the bunny, again, became the inspiration for various jokes about the juxtaposition between the president and the anthropomorphized bunny.

Twitter^[8] user @MollyJongFast posted the image with the caption, "If I had to pick one person for president in this photo. I would pick the bunny." The post received more than 885 retweets and 9,200 likes in one week (shown below, left).

Throughout the day, others made jokes about the bunny and the Trumps, as they had in previous years (examples below, center and right).

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External Reference