Former President Donald Trump’s indictment has a lot of people deep in their feelings. While his detractors literally pop champagne, Trump’s loyalists are outraged.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) falls into the latter camp. Cassidy is apoplectic over the White House Gift Shop selling coins to commemorate the occasion of Trump’s (second) indictment. He even chose it for a running social media gag he calls “outrage of the week.”
It’s not clear if Cassidy personally believes the store is part of the government, but his tweet clearly suggests that the actual White House is selling coins to celebrate Trump being indicted on 37 federal charges. That’s simply not the case. The White House Gift Shop is a private company.
On Monday, Cassidy posted a video on his personal Twitter account blasting the shop.
“The White House Gift Shop should not be selling a commemorative coin marking Donald Trump’s indictment. This is totally outrageous,” Cassidy wrote.
Cassidy said that irrespective of politics, “You gotta admit it’s poor taste.”
“It’s the wrong thing to do. Have a sense of decency, White House Gift Shop.”
Trump supporters were unsurprisingly disgusted by the company selling a coin to pay homage to the historic indictment. “It’s real. It’s inappropriate,” wrote one.
It didn’t take Twitter users long to point out that the store isn’t actually affiliated with the government.
@BadFoxGraphics tweeted, “It’s totally outrageous that Bill Cassidy is a physician but doesn’t have the brains to do two minutes of research to debunk his own nonsense about the White House Gift Shop.”
Another person called the senator “an utter turnip brain.”
Several thanked Cassidy for drawing their attention to the $100 coin the White House Gift Shop is selling.
“I better get mine while I can!!!” @MomsThoughts commented.
This isn’t even the first, or even the second, time people have gotten into a tizzy because they believed the store is part of the actual White House.
Three years ago, its coronavirus commemorative coins caused enough of a stir that Snopes felt obligated to debunk viral claims that the White House was capitalizing on the pandemic. Last year, the Associated Press fact-checked the false claim that the White House was selling coins dedicated to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Cassidy obviously doesn’t approve of the Trump indictment coin. But perhaps he would prefer the White House Gift Shop’s coin marking the (second) time Trump was acquitted by the Senate, or maybe the one from when he became besties with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un.
