President Joe Biden called Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) “thoroughly uninformed” after he accused the president of betraying the “central tenet of Easter.”
Johnson shared a post claiming that Biden stripped religious iconography from parts of the White House Easter Egg Roll and said his decision to declare Easter Sunday the “Transgender Day of Visibility” was “outrageous and abhorrent.”
“The American people are taking note,” Johnson posted on X, accompanied by screenshots of two headlines.
Asked about the speaker’s claim following his remarks at Monday’s egg roll, Biden told reporters, “I didn’t do that.”
“He’s thoroughly uninformed,” the president added.
Johnson’s comments were part of a larger backlash from Republicans over the headlines, prompting the White House to note that the International Transgender Day of Visibility is held on March 31 each year and happened to coincide with Easter this year.
Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters at Monday’s briefing that the White House was “surprised by the misinformation that’s been out there around this.”
“For folks who understand the calendar and how it works, Easter falls on different Sundays, right, every year, and this year, it happened to coincide with Transgender Visibility Day, and so that is the simple fact,” she said. “This misinformation out there is just — it’s just bad, and it is dividing us.”
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The White House also noted that there has been a ban on religious imagery at the White House Easter Egg Roll since 1978.
“As a Christian who celebrates Easter with family, President Biden stands for bringing people together and upholding the dignity and freedoms of every Americans,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates told the Washington Examiner. “Sadly, it’s unsurprising politicians are seeking to divide and weaken our country with cruel, hateful, and dishonest rhetoric. President Biden will never abuse his faith for political purposes or for profit.”
