President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania hosted the annual White House Easter Egg Roll with nearly 30,000 real eggs – despite continued high prices for them in the US.
The 2,500 dozen eggs were used at the event with the Trumps opening up the South Lawn to more than 30,000 visitors on Monday morning.
Donald and Melania, who wore a cream-colored coat and stood alongside an Easter bunny, blew whistles to kick off the event. They smiled and watched as children used spoons to roll dyed, hard-boiled eggs on the grass to the finish line while trying not to crack them.
Tens of thousands of eggs were used in the tradition dating back to 1878, even though retail prices for eggs are still higher than normal due to the bird flu spread. Wholesale egg prices have been trending down.
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The eggs were donated by farmers were not the same size as those sent to grocery stores, according to the American Egg Board.
Board president and CEO Emily Metz stated in a press release that the eggs provided to the White House would ‘not create additional strain on the nation’s egg supply or egg prices’.
Farmers donate 30,000 eggs for the event every year. The figure may seem large, but Metz said they are only a small fraction of the 108million eggs sold to retailers on a daily basis.
‘The eggs used for the White House Easter Egg Roll will be in sizes small and medium, which are not meant for the retail and grocery channels,’ Metz stated.
Earlier this month, the president made it clear that he would not allow for the real eggs to be replaced with fake ones.
‘They were saying that for Easter “please don’t use eggs. Could you use plastic eggs?” I say we don’t want to do that,’ he said, according to NBC News.
Metz said in an interview: ‘We feel like we need to take a moment to celebrate where we can, and you cannot have Easter without eggs. And you cannot have the White House Easter egg roll without real eggs.’
During the egg roll, the president said Easter is ‘special’ and ‘one of our favorite periods of time’.
‘We’re honoring Jesus Christ, and we’re going to honor Jesus Christ very powerfully throughout our lives,’ he said. ‘We’re bringing religion back in America. We’re bringing a lot of things back, but religion is coming back to America.’
He gave his wife a ‘special thank you’ for working to organize the event.
Melania held her husband’s hand and laughed as he made a joke about his predecessor, ex-President Joe Biden, being taken out by the Easter bunny and saying ‘it’s not taking Trump out’.
Asked by reporters how the egg roll went, Melania said: ‘It was fantastic. So much fun.’
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