SerpApi.Org
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung recently took to X, defending Donald Trump and recirculating a bizarre decades-old rumor about actor Richard Gere.
Confused? It seems like everyone else is too. The Washington, D.C., insider couldn’t seem to get past an interview Gere did with theAP last month, in which the actor criticized the President, saying, “USAID was probably the most pure thing America did up to that moment. It was a giveaway program to needy people. Whether it was health, education, it was women’s issues, it was all kinds of stuff. Big things, small things. What they did with HIV/AIDS saved tens of millions of lives. Continuing. He stopped that day one.”
Gere added, “It was insane…He wouldn’t even know what it stands for, USAID. He has idiots around him who have the same ignorance about it. Are we ashamed of it? Yes. That was the good part of us. He keeps saying we’re the wealthiest, most powerful country in ther world. What do you do if you’re the wealthiest, most powerful? You help people. “
Cheung was clearly not thrilled about the interview. And when this particular clip (about USAID) was reposted online, he decided to fire back in a…well, interesting way.
Instead of directly addressing Gere’s concerns, Cheung took a much more salacious approach. The Coms Director shared on X, “Sorry, not going to listen to a guy that may have put a gerbil up his a**.”
Of course, Cheung is referring to the widely debunked rumor that surfaced sometime in the 1980s about Gere being rushed to the ER with a gerbil stuck in a, let’s just say, odd area.
Now considered an urban legend, the story made tabloid headlines in the pre-social-media days.
Even though it is completely false, the gerbil-rectum tale periodically resurfaced, putting Gere’s name in the spotlight again and again. Each time, the myth has been debunked, and the story eventually went away. But it looks like the Trump insider is bringing it back in some sort of strange clapback against the actor.
Cue the critics. It’s no surprise that Cheung’s post incited a wave of criticism on X. Comments ranged from “You’re disgusting. I can’t believe how low our country has gotten” to “Ah yes, nothing like responding to a legitimate criticism of US policy with a 1980s rumor to really show em, Steven. That’s why we pay you the big bucks.”
