While the big headline news for Donald Trump today is the departure of chief strategist Steve Bannon from the White House, the members of The President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities have stolen a little of the spotlight, resigning en masse in the snarkiest way possible.
In a letter Tweeted out by PCAH member Kal Penn on Friday morning, the 17 members of the committee tendered their resignation, doing so in protest of President Trump’s “support of the hate groups and terrorists who killed and injured fellow Americans in Charlottesville.”
Dear @realDonaldTrump, attached is our letter of resignation from the President’s Committee on the Arts & the Humanities @PCAH_gov pic.twitter.com/eQI2HBTgXs
— Kal Penn (@kalpenn) August 18, 2017
In addition to Penn, signatories to the letter include author Jhumpa Lahiri, artist Chuck Close and director George C. Wolfe. It condemns Trump for his “hateful rhetoric” and his attacks on various civil and political institutions in America, with its authors saying:
You released a budget which eliminates arts and culture agencies. You have threatened nuclear war while gutting diplomacy funding. The administration pulled out of the Paris agreement, filed an amicus brief undermining the Civil Rights Act and attacked our brave trans service members. You have subverted equal protections, and are committed to banning Muslims and refugee women & children from our great country … Your words and actions push us all away from the freedoms we are guaranteed.
Readers quickly noticed, however, that the letter contained an added, hidden message, and that when you take the first letter of each paragraph, they spell out ‘RESIST’, which has become a catch-cry in the anti-Trump movement.
The PCAH was established in the 1980s by then-President Ronald Reagan to advise the White House on cultural issues, and act as a bridge between the public and private sectors. The current (now former) members of the committee were all appointed by Barack Obama.
Late Friday afternoon, after the letter began to circulate, the White House issued a salty press release claiming that Trump had long ago decided not to renew the executive order for the committee, as the current administration sees it as a waste of American tax dollars.
https://twitter.com/sopandeb/status/898640246065295360
Kal Penn issued a pointed response, telling the President “you can’t break up with us after we broke up with you, LMFAO.”
Lol @realDonaldTrump you can’t break up with us after we broke up with you LMFAO https://t.co/bNy240RNQA
— Kal Penn (@kalpenn) August 18, 2017
First lady Melania Trump is the the “honorary chair” of the committee, a position she holds out of custom. She was not a signatory to the letter, and neither were any of the ex officio members, who are drawn from the ranks of government and institutions such as the Library of Congress and the Kennedy Centre.
