Hillary Clinton, Pepe Frog Join Donald Trump’s Surprise White House Visit With School Children

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Lisa de Moraes
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President Donald Trump’s surprise appearance before a group of students from a Birmingham Alabama Briarwood Christian School elicited quite a range of media reaction.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, for instance, noted happily that President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump today announced the re-opening of the White House to the public for touring, noting it is called “the people’s house.”

CNN played video of the students from that school taking the tour and being surprised by Trump, as a panel explained public adoration is Trump’s “oxygen,” suggesting this school field-trip ambush was a smart White House play to keep Trump happy and off Twitter.

Many media outlets noted that while the White House was staging Trump’s oxygenation, it should maybe have picked a spot where a full-length portrait of former First Lady Hillary Clinton was looking down on the whole scene as it played out. Former Clinton adviser Paul Begala suggested the moment be captioned: “Trump with the woman who got 2.8 million more votes than he did.”

But Mediaite had another suggestion: “Is That Cute Kid Making The Pepe Symbol?” after noticing the boy who posed with Trump made a hand gesture that bore an uncomfortable resemblance to that made by Pepe the Frog. The animated character embraced by the alt-right movement, was adopted by some Trump supporters, gained hate-symbol status from the Anti-Defamation League, and received the condemnation of Clinton.

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