When North Carolina Republican Rep. Madison Cawthorn launched into a wildly transphobic rant on the House floor earlier this month, most people were immediately — and understandably — drawn to the part of his 10th grade book report-style speech where he described a woman as “XX chromosomes, no tallywhacker.” But now, in light of his appearance at former President Donald Trump’s rally this weekend in Selma, North Carolina, I’m forced to consider another line from his diatribe — the part where he insisted that “science is not Burger King.” Because, as it turns out, there’s reason to believe that his declarations about hamburgers are just as unreliable and suspect as the rest of his conspicuously fabricated personal narrative.
First, some caveats: The above picture, taken ahead of the Trump rally (he’s wearing the same three piece suit in subsequent clips from the rally itself), seems to have originated from an Instagram post which, unfortunately, is no longer publicly available — probably an IG Story which expired 24 hours after the April 9 event. Accordingly, there’s no context or follow up on the pic that might provide some some much-needed clarity for what we’re looking at here.
Having said all that!! I have some questions:
1) Is that grill lit? It sure doesn’t look lit. It doesn’t even look like there’s charcoal in it anywhere — no direct heat zone, no indirect heat zone, no nothing. Just meat on metal in the midday sun.
2) What is going on with this cheese? It’s not melted (see above) and is just kind of drooping halfway off the burger patty, like someone who stumbles into bed drunk and only manages to get one pant leg off before they pass out.
3) Speaking of burger patties — that’s definitely a store bought slab of meat, isn’t it? I mean, it’s too symmetrical, the edge just a little too sharply defined, to actually be a handmade burger, right? Unless he has some friends using a shaper, just out of frame, laughing too.
4) Who in their right mind grills in a three piece suit??
Those are the questions I have, and frankly, until Cawthorn provides conclusive proof of his grilling skills before an impartial assessor, I have no choice but to believe that this is all just a quickly thrown together, not-very-well-executed photo-op for a guy who is still trying to shake the stink of cocaine orgies off his campaign.
