And Now Some Terrifying Propaganda From the White House Communications Team a Child Named Pickle

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Sarah Huckabee Sanders couldn’t have been looking forward to today’s White House press briefing. Where would she start? With yesterday’s health care vote? With Trump’s announcement that transgender people are now banned from serving in the military? The fact that major policy announcements are now apparently coming from his personal Twitter account?

Nope, none of the above! Instead, the new official press secretary introduced a brand new tradition of starting occasional briefings with a letter or email they receive, to “remind us a little bit more often of some of the forgotten men, women, and children that we’re here to serve and that the president is fighting for.” So, presumably, we won’t be hearing any letters from women, POC, the poor, elderly, or anyone from the LGBTQIA communities.

Today’s letter came from 9-year-old Dylan Harbin, who I’m sure is definitely a totally real child and not actually Trump or one of his employees. Definitely.

Dylan–whom everyone calls “Pickle,” wrote a letter to Donald Trump to let him know that he is Pickle’s favorite president ever. So much so that he had a Trump-themed birthday party, complete with a MAGA hat cake. You know, just like a very real boy would.

https://twitter.com/jeslach/status/890312761342705664

Or maybe:

A reporter asked Sanders to distribute or hold up the very real letter, which maybe she wasn’t expecting. She said she would, once she was able to obscure Dylan’s name and address. It took about an hour to white out Dylan’s last name, which she had already read aloud earlier.

As you can see in that totally real letter, Pickle had some questions for Trump. Like, how old are you? How big is the White House? How much money do you have?

Pickle doesn’t know why people don’t like Trump. He likes Trump. Because he’s a real person. Sure, Donald Trump has a history of making up fictional people, like John, that “publicist” he invented to say nice things about himself to the press, or his “friend,” “Jim,” who hates Paris. We know Dylan is real because we have his letter as proof.

Unfortunately, “real” “person” “Dylan” didn’t get as much attention as Sanders would have liked. All the mean journalists just wanted to talk about #FakeNews, like Trump’s attack on transgender rights.

https://twitter.com/jesseberney/status/890285861862027265

Even if Pickle is real, this is still propaganda. If he’s fake, it’s much more embarrassing propaganda, but either way, this is dangerous.

It’s so transparent, it’s embarrassing not just for Trump, Sanders, et al, or even just Americans, but for humanity, that they thought this would win anyone over.

https://twitter.com/Bro_Pair/status/890286659719372800

As for anyone hoping to get some answers on the new transgender military ban, like “What is going to happen to the troops currently serving?” or “How do you live with yourselves?”–sorry, Sanders didn’t have those answers. Maybe we can ask Pickle to forward a message for us.

(featured image: screengrab)

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Vivian Kane
Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.