We are more than two years into the Trump presidency, and his opponents still haven’t figured out that criticizing absolutely everything he says and does actually doesn't turn people against him. You’d think the president's critics in politics and news media would understand by now that nitpicking him over silly issues makes them look small and petty, accomplishing the exact opposite of attracting converts.

But you’d be wrong.

Yes, the White House served burgers, chicken sandwiches, chicken nuggets, salad, pizza, and french fries this week to the 2018 national college football champions. Yes, Trump bragged about paying to feed the Clemson Tigers out of pocket (there’s a shutdown, you know). Yes, the president exaggerated in his usual hyperbolic way about the amount of McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Domino's, and Burger King served this week and how much it cost him.

Maybe burgers and pizza are not the sort of spread one would expect from the White House. But the Clemson players appeared to appreciate it, and everyone seemed happy. So, who cares, really? The most this incident deserves is maybe an eye roll. Maybe.

But this is the era of Trump, and most of his critics in the news media are nuts, so of course the Clemson dinner has sparked a serious, mostly humorless response from reporters and pundits.

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, for example, tweeted the perfect gotcha, writing: "So Trump served Burger King and called it ‘great American food.’ Am I the only one who thought to do a little research? Burger King is owned by 3G Capital, which is ... Brazilian.”

Ah, yes. Who hasn’t taken a bite from a Whopper and thought, “This is Brazilian food!”?

And this keen fact-checker wasn't about to let the president get away with it!



Trump to media yesterday: "We have 300 hamburgers"

Trump to Clemson yesterday: "I go out and send for about 1,000 hamburgers"

Trump this morning: "I served them massive amounts of Fast Food (I paid), over 1000 hamberders" — Daniel Dale (@ddale8) January 15, 2019



The Washington Post, meanwhile, published an analysis titled, “ President Trump’s extravagant, $3,000, 300-sandwich celebration of Clemson University,” exploring just how many sandwiches were served and what it likely cost the president. The “detailed Washington Post analysis” includes charts, graphs, and investigations of wire photos and social media posts. The article is clearly written in jest, but at nearly 1,000 words long, the author is maybe just a bit too committed to the gag, which ultimately is about proving whether the president is a liar and a skinflint. And all because the White House served burgers.

Then, there’s Vox, which used the meal and the president’s subsequent remarks as an opportunity to launch into a broader discussion about his tendency to lie.

On Monday, Trump told the players, “we have 300 hamburgers, many, many French fries — all of our favorite foods.” Tuesday morning, he tweeted that he paid for “over 1000 hamberders [sic] etc.”

For Vox, the discrepancy between the numbers suggests a more serious problem. “This particular exaggeration isn’t a big deal in and of itself, obviously,” the author claims in an article titled, “Trump’s tweet about ‘hamberders’ illustrates just how effortlessly he lies.”

The author adds, “But it does reflect how effortlessly Trump fibs about everything from steel plants to Democrats’ position on the shutdown to ‘hamberders.’”

For the record, the president also said that the stack of burgers was “piled up a mile high.” As the Post very helpfully noted Tuesday, that can’t possibly be true.

"At two inches each, a thousand burgers would not reach one mile high. Had Trump instead invested his entire net worth — $3.1 billion per Forbes last year — on $5 sandwiches, each two inches high? A stack of hamburgers nearly 20,000 miles high," the Post noted.

Thank God for this press.