A tweet accusing a dozen American fast food chains of supporting Donald Trump’s reelection campaign has gone viral, inspiring many passionate anti-Trump supporters, including Chrissy Teigen, to boycott the companies, Newsweek reported.
However, since gaining viral fame, the tweet has come under fire as many have questioned the validity of its sweeping claims.
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Twitter user @BillyBobSanderz compiled the call-out list of fast food chains and tweeted it to the world on Thursday.
Among those companies who he claims are “supporting Trump’s re-election” are McDonald’s, IHOP, KFC, and Taco Bell. He finishes the tweet with the quip, “So if you see me starting to get thinner and toned don’t ask me why.”
The user, who’s real name is Zuriel Sanders, revealed his findings came from extensive research into the companies.
“In my tracking down I noticed a lot of the companies are funding PACS which are directly helping Trump’s re-election or have helped in the past,” he told Newsweek . “It’s indirect but I still see it as them supporting his campaign even if it’s indirect you know?”
He added that consumers who frequent these chains are therefore unwittingly supporting Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign.
He also said the list isn’t meant to shame these companies: “…it’s more me pointing out hey, you’re posting how you don’t like what our admin is doing, but you’re kind of supporting them.”
As of writing, the tweet has racked up over 230,000 retweets in just the two days since it was posted.
Sanders followed up the tweet with more companies he claimed support Trump, including Applebees, Target, and Outback Steakhouse.
He also included several links to sources he claim prove the validity of his list and out the companies for providing financial support to the reelection campaign.
Many Twitter users reacted to the list with calls to boycott these companies, and Chrissy Teigen even joined in.
In her expletive-filled response to the tweet, the vocal Trump critic jokes that she, too, is “about to get skinny” in the wake of the damning news against so many fast food joints. Her response has been retweeted over 60,000 times.
Teigen recently made headlines for joining in on the boycott of SoulCycle and Equinox, two more companies which have been accused of supporting Trump.
However, several companies included on the list have since come forward to deny their support for Trump.
Chick-fil-A, Taco Bell and IHOP have all said they don’t make political donations. IHOP brand spokeswoman Stephanie Peterson said, “We’re about pancakes, not politics.”
She added, “IHOP as a brand is not involved in providing financial support to either side of the aisle.”
Sanders’ tweet has also come under fire for his links that don’t necessarily support his claims against the chains.
Several of the links he posted as evidence of these companies supporting Trump don’t prove political spending , but rather reveal assessments of the politics of the companies in a broad sense.
They don’t necessarily reveal donations to Trump’s 2016 or 2020 campaigns so much as they reveal these chains favor Republican-supporting donations over Democratic.
The links also reveal the personal political leanings of some individuals within the companies.
These are employees who were found to have personally donated their own money to the Trump campaign. So in some cases, Sanders’ evidence was against company employees rather than those companies themselves.
Despite the lack of concrete evidence, people are still calling for boycotts of these chains.
But judging from the various ways in which Sanders’ original tweet has been debunked, I’d say that unless you’re strictly looking to give your waistline a bit of a break, boycotting these chains probably won’t make the political statement you’d hope it would.
h/t: Newsweek , Washington Post
