Days before Tuesday's midterm elections, the Trump administration's own accounts are making the closing argument in memes — and two Halloween posts have drawn charges of inflammatory rhetoric from critics. On Saturday, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins posted a mock Spirit Halloween costume package headlined "SNAP FRAUDSTER": a man holding a burning bill in front of stacks of cash, with the package promising it "Steals MILLIONS from American Taxpayers" and "Goes to jail." Her message with it: "Some costumes come with a price tag. This one comes with a prison sentence. To anyone stealing from American taxpayers: The tricks are over. The treats are running out."
The man in the image is Mercedes Reshard New, a social media personality known as "Shawty Dred," whose photo appears to come from his own Instagram post of September 2025. Federal prosecutors say New ran more than 350 fraudulent SNAP accounts under stolen identities and extracted about $4 million from the food assistance program between January 2020 and July 2026. A federal grand jury indicted him on October 7 on dozens of counts of mail fraud and aggravated identity theft, plus SNAP fraud; he was arrested on October 13 and remains in federal custody. "Instead of this money feeding families in need, New allegedly used the cash to bankroll a life of luxury," said Marlo Graham, the FBI's special agent in charge in Atlanta. New's federal defender did not return a call seeking comment.
The second post came from the White House on Thursday: a photograph of a pumpkin with a sombrero carved across it, captioned "Spooky szn is here." It is not the administration's first sombrero fight. During last year's government shutdown, a deepfake video of House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries in a fake mustache and sombrero — posted by President Trump to accuse Democrats of acting for illegal immigrants instead of U.S. citizens — was played on repeat in the White House briefing room. Jeffries called the meme bigoted; Vice President JD Vance joked at the time that the "sombrero memes will stop" when Democrats agreed to end the shutdown.
The reaction split the way the midterms split. Representative Shontel Brown called Rollins' post "Despicable. Disgusting." and news outlets amplified the backlash through Saturday. Defenders answered that the costume names a man under federal indictment for stealing food money: "Facts aren't racist," as one widely shared reply put it. The Associated Press sought comment from the NAACP, the White House and Rollins; none of the three responded.
The administration's purpose in the posts is its closing case to voters: aggressive immigration enforcement, and a crackdown on benefit fraud to save taxpayers money, at a moment when the cost of living tops voter concerns. SNAP is the program that puts food on the table for low-income households, and the $4 million prosecutors say was stolen out of it is exactly the loss the crackdown promises to stop. Whether the memes move voters or offend them is now a Tuesday question.
📰 ProfiloPolitics Member News — choose your news, share it, earn credit: https://white-curlew-963569.hostingersite.com
Join ProfiloPolitics on Telegram
Get the news as it breaks — follow our Telegram channel for every story, first.
Follow @profilopoliticsnews