On Wednesday, the official White House account on X posted a photo of a pumpkin carved with a sombrero and the caption “Spooky szn is here.” The white house pumpkin post went up six days before the midterm elections, and the replies arrived the way trick-or-treaters do when you leave the porch light on: all at once, and every one of them with an opinion.
The carving appeared to call back to AI videos that Trump and other Republicans shared in 2025 putting Democratic lawmakers in sombreros, which drew wide criticism as racist, according to a <a>report on the White House sombrero pumpkin</a>. I am a person who apologizes to a chair after I bump into it, so I spent a full minute just staring at this pumpkin. The internet spent that minute sharpening its carving knives.
The Replies Started Out Polite
The first wave was mostly people sighing in text form. Some of them were tired, some were baffled that a government account posts like a teenager’s finsta, and one did the math on the calendar out loud.
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That election timing joke landed because it is true: the midterms are on November 3, which means this pumpkin will still be on the porch when people vote. I keep my pumpkins until they collapse into a soft orange puddle, so I am in no position to judge anyone’s decorating schedule.
Then the Pumpkins Started Carving Back
This is where it got good. Instead of arguing, people opened their own image generators and made pumpkins of their own, which is the most Halloween way to win an argument I have ever seen. The first one turned the president himself into the jack-o’-lantern, glowing eyes and all, which honestly makes it the most traditional carving of the bunch.
Another went full harvest festival and put a grinning pumpkin version of him on a hay bale behind a wooden sign about the midterms. It looks like the poster for a haunted corn maze where the scariest part is the polling.
The White House Pumpkin Post Met Its Match
The best reply did the least. Someone recreated the exact same moody photo, same table, same little White House logo in the corner, and swapped the sombrero for a folder of Epstein files. The caption was just “Boo.” It is a callback to the long fight over releasing those files, and it is the only carving in this whole saga I would actually put on my porch.
Turns out every jack-o’-lantern comes with a reply button.
For a palate cleanser before Friday, Every October I Plan Ambitious Funny Pumpkin Carvings, and Every October I Carve Two Triangles is the gentle stuff. When gentle is not cutting it, 20 R Rated Pumpkins That Should Stay Off The HOA Newsletter is the stronger dose, and Funny Halloween Posts Are What Happens When Adults Get One Month a Year to Be Weird on Purpose treats whatever is left.
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