The White House issued a scathing official statement on Thursday in response to the latest episode of South Park, accusing the long-running animated series of desperation and irrelevance after it mocked President
Donald Trump
in its season 27 premiere.
The episode, which aired on July 24, featured a series of provocative scenes, including a deepfake of Trump wandering naked through a desert and a fantasy sequence showing him in bed with Satan.
Co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone also used the episode to lampoon Paramount, the network’s parent company, as well as Trump’s recent $16 million legal settlement with the media giant.
NEW: South Park targets President Trump over the Epstein files in their new episode, puts him in bed with Satan.
The episode comes as South Park has just reportedly agreed to a 5 year, 50 episode, $1.5 billion deal with Paramount.
“The Epstein list? Are we still talking…
pic.twitter.com/sE4zt2ONOu
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg)
July 24, 2025
In the statement seen by
The Hollywood Reporter
, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers dismissed the show as a “fourth-rate” production that was “hanging on by a thread with uninspired ideas in a desperate attempt for attention.”
Rogers said that those praising the episode were being hypocritical, adding that the president’s achievements speak for themselves. “President Trump has delivered on more promises in just six months than any other president in our country’s history,” she said. “No fourth-rate show can derail President Trump’s hot streak.”
The episode, titled Sermon on the ‘Mount’, was the first to air under a massive new $1.5 billion deal between Parker, Stone, and Paramount, which now holds exclusive streaming rights to the series through Paramount+.
The episode also took aim at CBS for its abrupt cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, while drawing links between the network, its parent company, Paramount, and the fictional world of South Park. In one scene, the character of Jesus warns the townspeople about corporate control by declaring, “You guys saw what happened to CBS? Well, guess who owns CBS? Paramount.”
Trump himself has not publicly commented on the episode, an unusual move considering his frequent use of social media to respond to criticism. However, allies of the president quickly echoed the White House statement, accusing the show of crossing a line and arguing that the portrayal was crude and offensive.
Right-leaning commentators on Fox News questioned why Paramount would pay so much for a series that aims at the president and mocked its decision to sign such a lucrative deal with the creators.
Despite the backlash, the episode has garnered strong ratings and sparked widespread online discussion, with clips of the more controversial moments going viral across platforms such as X and TikTok. Fans of the series praised Parker and Stone for continuing to push boundaries after more than two decades on the air. Some noted that South Park has a long history of skewering presidents from both political parties, arguing that Trump’s depiction is part of a broader tradition rather than a partisan attack.
The timing of the episode could fuel further scrutiny of the Paramount-Skydance merger and other corporate deals that have disrupted production schedules and angered talent in Hollywood.
Parker and Stone themselves recently criticized those negotiations as “a mess,” suggesting that South Park’s creators are not afraid to bite the hand that feeds them. The uproar also comes as Paramount seeks to bolster its streaming catalog amid intense competition from rivals such as Netflix and Disney+.
For now, the White House statement indicates that Trump’s team is still willing to respond directly to entertainment properties when they believe the president’s image is at stake.
Whether this leads to further conflict or simply boosts the show’s popularity remains to be seen, but the statement could be perceived as another attempt by the Trump administration to distract his base from the fallout surrounding Epstein.
