Daily Caller Fully Retracts Article Claiming Biden Banned ‘Religious Easter Eggs’ From White House Contest

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The Daily Caller on Tuesday retracted an article claiming that the Biden White House banned “religious Easter eggs” from an art contest at the annual Easter Egg Roll over the weekend.

The claim had spread through right-wing media, even though it was quickly and widely debunked by various fact-checkers and anyone familiar with the history of the event.

“The Biden administration banned children from submitting Easter eggs with religious themes for its 2024 ‘Celebrating National Guard Families’ art contest,” read the lede from Julianna Frieman’s now-retracted report in the Caller, a hardright publication co-founded by Tucker Carlson.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) shared the headline over the weekend and wrote, “The Biden White House has betrayed the central tenet of Easter — which is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Banning sacred truth and tradition—while at the same time proclaiming Easter Sunday as “Transgender Day”—is outrageous and abhorrent. The American people are taking note.”

“Following the publication of this article, the Daily Caller became aware of additional context that undercut the central assertion of this article and its newsworthiness,” read Tuesday’s retraction in the Caller, which added:

The ban of religious symbolism on eggs as part of the White House Easter egg art contest has been longstanding, dating back decades, and the Biden administration did not make any modifications to this rule. While the Caller did not explicitly state at any point that the rule was new, this additional context rendered the main thrust of the article misleading to readers, who could reasonably have come to the conclusion that the rule was new.

With that additional context included, the news value of the article was significantly diminished, leading the senior leadership at the Caller to the decision to retract. We sincerely regret the error and are taking the necessary steps to ensure similar mistakes can be avoided in the future.

White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates responded to the retraction, saying, the publication “did the right thing by retracting this story on the Easter Egg Roll.” President Joe Biden, a devout Catholic,  came under a bevy of attacks from right-wing media over the long-standing rules regarding the Easter egg design contest and for issuing a proclamation for International Transgender Day of Visibility, which has been on March 31st for some 15 years now.

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