EXCLUSIVE: The White House went on the offensive Thursday morning as an irate Donald Trump fumes over last night’s South Park Season 27 premiere that depicted him as a Satan-canoodling and less than well-endowed pompous bully, to put it mildly.
“The President is seething over the childish attack by South Park,” an administration source tells Deadline this morning. However, as annoyed as POTUS is over Trey Parker and Matt Stone‘s cartoon depiction of him and a harshly mocking AI-generated PSA during the episode titled “Sermon on the ‘Mount” that depicted the MAGA chief naked in the desert, the White House was not blindsided by the satire.
With FCC approval of Skydance‘s drawn-out merger with Paramount imminent, the administration was given a heads up over the South Park premiere, I’m told. Whether that involved actually seeing a screener or merely a description of the extremely topical episode is unclear.
Reps for the David Ellison-led Skydance did not respond to request for comment on the episode. Contacted by Deadline, Paramount had “no comment” on the matter.
On the other hand, with nothing yet from Trump himself on social media, the White House was more than eager to go on the record and on the counterattack.
“The Left’s hypocrisy truly has no end – for years they have come after South Park for what they labeled as ‘offense’ content, but suddenly they are praising the show,” White House Assistant Press Secretary Taylor Rogers told Deadline this morning.
“Just like the creators of South Park, the Left has no authentic or original content, which is why their popularity continues to hit record lows,” Rogers added. “This show hasn’t been relevant for over 20 years and is hanging on by a thread with uninspired ideas in a desperate attempt for attention. President Trump has delivered on more promises in just six months than any other president in our country’s history – and no fourth-rate show can derail President Trump’s hot streak.”
Rogers did not mention he Skydance-Paramount merger the remarks. The merger is currently up for review by the FCC.
The Thursday South Park episode certainly mention the deal, in addition to toggling between Stephen Colbert’s recent late-night axing, efforts to kneecap diversity programs, and Trump’s penchant for suing critical media outlets (like CBS, who settled with POTUS for $16 million earlier this month over what was called a “meritless” 60 Minutes suit). Jesus in the school system, going to war with Canada (an old South Park trope) censorship and corporate kowtowing was also in the mix.
Even the successful cutting of public broadcasting’s funding got a cameo. “Who the hell does the president think he is?” South Park’s whining Cartman exclaims in the premiere about the blows against NPR. “The government can’t cancel a show. I mean, what show are they going to cancel next?”
Of course, with a deft reference to Saddam Hussein and 1999’s South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut movie in the cartoon affair between Trump and Satan, it was the “pro-Trump messaging” at the end that really took last night’s episode to a new level unmatched in the first six months of the heavy-handed former Celebrity Apprentice host’s return to power.
In a nod to Trump’s assertion that there was a PSA side deal in his settlement with CBS, the scene comes as the town of South Park settles a fictional multibillion-dollar suit from POTUS for $3.5 million.
“Trump. His penis is teeny-tiny, but his love for us is large,” the fake PSA narrator concludes, leaving nothing to the imagination. The South Park team has put up a HeTrumpUs site to house the self-described “synthetic media.”
You can see what that messaging looked like here, but be warned, it is graphic and very NSFW:
Just days after signing a hard-fought and lucrative five-year-deal with Paramount, South Park creators Parker and Stone are scheduled to appear at San Diego Comic-Con on Thursday. Can you guess what they might discuss?
Ted Johnson contributed to this report.
