Easter Bunny pays surprise visit to White House briefing room
A White House staffer dressed as the Easter Bunny paid a visit to the White House briefing room on Monday as press secretary Jen Psaki was concluding a regular afternoon briefing with reporters.
The life-size bunny, who wore a face mask to reflect the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, walked to the front of the briefing room and distributed 2021 Easter eggs and candy to reporters.
The Easter Bunny also made an appearance at an event earlier Monday afternoon during which President Biden delivered remarks marking the Easter holiday instead of the traditional White House Easter Egg Roll, which was canceled for the second year in a row due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“We have a special guest. I will say that we know that this is one of the events where people get to take their children, family members, friends to,” Psaki said as the Easter Bunny walked towards the podium at the end of the briefing. “It’s not quite the same. We’ll do a big one next year, but we still wanted to have a visitor and some special commemorative Easter eggs for all of you from the president and first lady.”
The White House eggs handed out to reporters were multicolored and decorated with a picture of a rabbit wearing a mask on the front and signatures of Biden and first lady Jill Biden on the back.
Meghan Hays, White House director of message planning, later tweeted a photo of herself in the bunny costume with the head portion removed, revealing that she was playing the part of the Easter Bunny.
“Is this what they mean when they say ‘other duties as assigned’?!” Hays quipped.
Psaki was asked Monday whether the costume was the same as the one previously worn by former President Trump’s press secretary Sean Spicer during his time in the George W. Bush administration. Images of Spicer in the outfit resurfaced in 2017 and became part of “Saturday Night Live’s” impression of the then-Trump staffer.
“It does not look similar but we’ll have to fact-check that for you,” Psaki answered. “Different eye lashes.”
The White House later confirmed that the suit worn by Spicer was indeed different than the one that Hays wore on Monday.
—Updated at 3:30 p.m.