BREAKING: Donald Trump exposed as child-eating space lizard

Markets dropped Monday morning after footage was revealed showing the United States president, Donald Trump, unhinging his jaw and swallowing an infant during a White House photo event.

The video appeared to show Trump's face swelling, then splitting open at the mouth to reveal green scales and a large number of large, pointed teeth. As Trump seized and began to swallow the child, the president's face appeared to tear into several pieces, at which point his face and trademark hair fell to the ground. Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, attending the awards event intended to draw attention to Texas victims of public library wokeness, continue to smile at the assembled crowd as the child disappears down Trump's throat.

Trump then appears to wag a pair of long, green antennae growing above his freshly exposed reptilian face several times before telling the crowd that the child was "delicious."

The event was broadcast live on Fox News, C-SPAN 2 and on X. Several White House visitors uploaded their own videos of the interrupted ceremony to video distribution site YouTube, where they collectively had received 520,000,000 views by late Monday morning.

Speaking from the White House press room shortly after the event, administration press secretary Karoline Leavitt declared the footage "fake news."

"The president is obviously not a child-eating lizard-like creature from outer space, and the media outlets creating a frenzy over these videos are enemies of the American people, the administration's agenda, and Zizzlar, Ruler of Gold and Eater of Children," said Leavitt. "There were no infants at this event to begin with. The president has never seen or tasted an infant in his life."

Those initial White House denials did little to quell market concerns, with the Dow falling 300 points in early trading. Appearing on CNBC, White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett dismissed speculation of a wider sell-off.

"My theory, as an economist, is that Americans know how much President Trump has done for this economy and aren't interested in how many children he eats. Under his leadership, prices are going to keep slithering downward and patriotic American families know that and like that."

In a hastily arranged Zoom meeting, Republican House and Senate leaders urged peers to stand by the White House. "This will pass," House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told participants, according to two sources familiar with the call. "For as long as I've known Trump, kids around him have mysteriously disappeared and it's never been a big deal. This is a man who founded multiple child talent agencies, he's hosted child beauty pageants, I mean come on. Everyone around him has gotten used to kids disappearing. It's in the news for a day or two and then everybody moves on."

Soon after the meeting, House Speaker Mike Johnson held a press event in which he vigorously defended Trump, calling him blessed by God and declaring his presidency "the fruits of divine providence."

"Did God save the president's life, or are bullets simply unable to pierce the president's tough, glittering hide? I think the Bible tells us that it's both. Maybe God knew that only a carnivorous space lizard who feasted on the blood of our children would have the strength to lead America through these challenging times. Maybe God is a space lizard too, you don't know. That's kind of an arousing thought, right?"

Conservative commenters largely ignored the growing scandal, with White House ally Dinesh D'Souza telling his audience that "it's been hours since this happened, it's time to move on." Fox News' Laura Ingraham interrupted a segment highlighting the increasing number of missing children in America, announcing she was "bored with this now" before pivoting to a discussion of the First Lady's recent wardrobe trends.

In response to the video, several online advocacy sites pointed to a clause in the Republican-authored Big Beautiful Bill that allocates $1.2 billion to a newly created Feeding Children To Space Lizards Agency. The new federal program is be housed in what was previously the headquarters of defunct agency U.S. Aid; on Friday, Trump announced that White House adviser Stephen Miller was to be the agency's first acting administrator.

Appearing at a groundbreaking for a new Department of Homeland Security child separation and processing center, DHS secretary Kristi Noem said she hadn't seen the footage from the Trump event and "wasn't interested in these gotcha games by journalists."

"Sometimes people's faces split open, revealing scales or antennas or a pair of lush, full lips they didn't have before," said Noem. "Maybe you wokes would know that if you weren't trapped in your woke cities riding your woke subways to your woke university jobs."

Former White House physician Rep. Ronny Jackson echoed Noem in dismissing press concerns. "In all my years as White House physician I never saw a more healthy, less lizard-like chief executive. As long as he oils his scales and basks in a golf course sand trap for at least two hours a day, he could live to be five hundred. And there hasn't been a president in history with a longer and more supple tongue."

In response to inquiries, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. confirmed that "human children can be a reasonable part of a presidential diet, so long as it's only three or four a day."

"I'd advise the president to stick mostly to unvaccinated kids, because they're less likely to have haunted blood. And if you're an American parent, I'd advise you to keep your kids unvaccinated so that your president can eat them if that becomes necessary."

In response to the footage of Trump's apparent inhuman status and now-proven child eating, Democrats are divided on whether to call for impeachment. Party activists point out that American presidents are required to be "natural-born" citizens and that there is no record of any extraterrestrial or lizardian deliveries at the Queens hospital where Trump claims to have been born, calling Trump's own claims of his birth into question. They also assert eating children to be a "clearly impeachable offense," in the words of attorney Marc Elias.

"Even eating one child, whether on camera or not, would count as at least a misdemeanor. But if we're seeing evidence of numerous children being eaten I imagine Congress and probably even this Supreme Court would agree that was a high crime."

But Democratic leaders are wary of pursuing potentially divisive challenges to the administration's actions. "The Republicans want us to talk about the child eating," warned former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The more time we spend debating whether or not a lizard president is allowed to eat our children, the less time there is to talk about the kitchen table issues our voters care about."

Most Republicans are less conflicted. Miranda Adams, whose daughter Amy was eaten at the morning incident, says Trump hasn't lost her vote. "I'm sad to see her go, but if feeding our children to Donald Trump to be is the only way to stop Democrat policies then we should feed him as many children as he wants."

Sen. Cruz, whose office was facilitating Adams' early return to Texas, echoed that opinion. "As many as he wants," he said in a brief statement. "Republicans will have that bill on the president's desk by the end of the week."

"As an apology, the president gave me a scale he'd shed," said Adams. "And he even signed it. For my husband and I, that was the highlight of the trip."

UPDATE: In a press release, White House press secretary Leavitt Whereyufwndit says that the president's behavior during the morning event was caused by side effects of chronic venous insufficiency, with which Trump was diagnosed last week.

"As a result of this mild condition, which does not in any way affect the president's abilities or impedes him in his battle to against the fake news and the wokes, the president is growing a thick, green, and patriotic tail," she wrote. "Americans may also sometimes notice the president's legs swelling noticeably, his knees bending in strange directions, or his face sloughing off. These are all common side effects of CVI and can be managed with medication."

UPDATE: The U.S. Supreme Court has just issued an unsigned, unrequested opinion clarifying that presidents are allowed to be lizards and eat children, so long as they believe eating children to be in the "best interests" of the country and Executive Branch. Story on A-17.