Topline
Republican Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, in his latest re-election fundraising appeal, asserted President Joe Biden’s “radical liberal policies” are to blame for a sauce shortage at some Chick-fil-A locations.
Key Facts
In the appeal, reportedly emailed to potential supporters on Monday, Stitt’s campaign says Biden’s policies have “REAL WORLD CONSEQUENCES” the current president “doesn’t seem tuned to” because he’s focused on “appeasing the woke liberals with his out of touch, radical, socialist agenda.”
One of the consequences that can be blamed on Biden, according to Stitt, is Chick-fil-A, due to industry-wide supply chain issues, limiting the number of sauces each customer receives.
Stitt, who is running for re-election in 2022, wrote that in addition to increasing gas prices and grocery bills, “now Chick-fil-A has a sauce shortage” but fails to provide any clear evidence linking the shortage to the president or his policies.
Stitt’s re-election campaign is requesting donations to “make sure Chick-fil-A never has another sauce shortage.”
In February, Biden signed an executive order to review U.S. supply chains for vital goods, and the Department of Agriculture said last month it is looking to “improve and reimagine the supply chains for the production, processing and distribution of agricultural commodities and food products.”
Forbes reached out to Stitt’s office for comment but did not hear back.
Key Background:
Supply chain problems related to the pandemic have impacted various sectors of the global and domestic economy. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that popular fast-food chains such as KFC and Buffalo Wild Wings had been forced to pay skyrocketing prices for poultry. “The overall supply is constrained. That affects every part of the bird,” a Wingstop executive told the Journal, with the company stating it is paying 26% more for bone-in chicken wings. Chick-fil-A says it hasn’t been affected by the chicken scarcity, but last Wednesday, the restaurant chain announced that customers would receive, at most, one sauce per entrée, two sauces per meal, and three sauces per 30-count nuggets. “We are actively working to make adjustments to solve this issue quickly and apologize to our guests for any inconvenience,” the company said in a statement. Over the past few months, many restaurants have been hampered by a shortage of ketchup packets. Heinz, the U.S.’s biggest ketchup producer, last month announced a 25% increase in production. Some Republican lawmakers and conservative political pundits have attempted to blame Biden for the nationwide fuel storage arising from the shutdown of Colonial Pipeline on May 7, despite the fact that cybercriminals were the culprits. Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday said Biden “has CREATED crisis after crisis. First there was the Biden Border Crisis… now the Biden Gas Crisis.” On that same day, Sen Ted Cruz (R-Tx.) tweeted out a Breitbart article detailing Chick-fil-A’s sauce shortage with the caption, “Joe Biden is destroying America.” Fox News host Tucker Carlson claimed that “on some level,” the Biden Administration “approves of this disaster.”
Crucial Quote:
“Conservative governors are the absolute last line of defense,” Stitt wrote. “We’re fighting to block liberal policies and promote common-sense policies to bring down the price of gas, to lower the cost of groceries, and to make sure Chick-fil-A never has another sauce shortage.”
Tangent:
Earlier this month, Stitt signed into law House Bill 1775, which bans critical race theory from being included in the state’s public school curriculum. Last Monday, the eight-member Oklahoma City Public Schools Board of Education unanimously denounced the new law. On Friday, the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission said its members decided “to part ways” with Stitt. “I think 80%, 90% of Americans agree with what we’re talking about,” Stitt told Fox & Friends on Sunday. “We shouldn’t be teaching political activism in our public school system, and in Oklahoma, we banned that from happening.”