The White House cited a parody article published in the Washington Post as support for President Donald Trump’s proposed budget.
The article, “Trump’s budget makes perfect sense and will fix America, and I will tell you why,” was penned by the Post’s Alexandra Petri for her “ComPost” column.
“This budget will make America a lean, mean fighting machine with bulging, rippling muscles and not an ounce of fat,” Petri wrote in the article. “America has been weak and soft for too long. 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.”
Petri then ran down a list of agencies that would be affected by Trump’s budget draft.
“There will be no LABOR in the future,” she wrote of proposed cuts to the Department of Labor. “Labor is what women do, I think. All fetuses will burst out of wombs brandishing an Uzi on each arm. (Also, we will cut the funding to the people who would have explained that this is not how birth or labor works.)”
The White House included the article at the bottom of its “1600 Daily” newsletter. (Here’s an archived copy.)
Petri seemed to delight in the mistake on her Twitter account, reposting the musician Jenks Miller, who wrote, “You all may need to be more clear about what’s actually a parody during this administration,” and responding in her own right to the mix-up:
REAL NEWS BEST NEWS https://t.co/lNEBYBlemu
— Alexandra Petri (@petridishes) March 17, 2017
*sigh* no one reads any more
— Alexandra Petri (@petridishes) March 17, 2017
