PIEGATE
Trump aide posts snap of perfect dish ... but is it more bake news?
FOR Americans, it’s one of the great culinary traditions of Thanksgiving dinner.
But even the humble chocolate pecan pie can be a victim of the era of ‘fake news’, it seems.
In what has been dubbed ‘Piegate’, the Trump administration has been accused of lying about its baking skills.
The row erupted after White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted a picture of a tasty-looking treat – which she said she had made at her family farm in Arkansas for the dinner on Thursday.
‘I don’t cook much these days, but managed this Chocolate Pecan Pie for Thanksgiving at the family farm!’ the tweet read.
However, the picture quickly raised suspicions that it wasn’t her own creation.
It was set against a stark white background, had a golden hue rather than the darker colour of chocolate versions, and looked so perfectly baked that the busy Trump aide was accused of using a stock photo from the internet.
Accusations were led by April Ryan, a White House CNN correspondent who often spars with Miss Huckabee Sanders. ‘Show it to us on a table,’ tweeted Miss Ryan.
‘I am not trying to be funny but folks are already saying #piegate and #fakepie. Show it to us on the table with folks eating it and a pic of you cooking it. I am getting the biggest laugh out of this,’ she added.
She refused, but offered to bake one for Miss Ryan. She replied: ‘Okay I want to watch you bake it and put it on the table. But forgive [me] I won’t eat it. Remember you guys don’t like the Press.’ Miss Huckabee Sanders, a 35-yearold mother of three, is the daughter of former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee.
Fox News commentator Todd Starnes said it was ‘ill-mannered and uncouth to suggest a Southern woman would sully the sanctity of the Thanksgiving Day table with a storebought pecan pie’. While Miss Huckabee Sanders refused to post further supporting pictures of her pie, she insisted: ‘Of course I made the pie. I make it for every holiday family gathering and have for years.’
She said she used a recipe handed down to her by her mother and her grandmother.
Mr Starnes said sources close to the aide’s family had confirmed ‘the authenticity and the tastiness’ of her pies.