JD Vance decided the day before Thanksgiving was a perfect time to tell the world his culinary preferences ― and turkey farmers probably won’t be pleased.
The vice president visited Fort Campbell on the Kentucky-Tennessee border on Wednesday to meet members of the military and serve them an early holiday meal with the help of his wife, Usha, daughter Mirabel, and sons Ewan and Vivek.
At one point, Vance got up to make a few remarks after Kid Rock introduced him as “someone I do hope to call our 48th president one day.”
Although most of Vance’s remarks contained the typical patriotic fare, he did take issue with the dish that is famously the centerpiece of most Americans’ Thanksgiving meals: turkey.
“Thanksgiving, what we celebrate tomorrow, that is a uniquely American thing,” he added, not quite accurately. “That’s why, for example, we have, you know, turkey.”
“Think about turkey,” he continued, before taking the speech in an unexpected direction.
“Who really likes ― be honest with yourselves — who really likes turkey?” he asked, prompting some soldiers in the audience to cheer.
“You’re all full of shit. Everybody who raised your hands,” Vance replied.
“I know. Think about it. And here’s how I know that every single one of you who raised your hand is lying to me. How many times do you roast an 18-pound turkey just randomly? Just, you know, a nice summer afternoon, we’re gonna go get an 18-pound turkey. Nobody does it, because turkey doesn’t actually taste that good.”
But then Vance got patriotic again. “On the most American holiday, we’re gonna cook a turkey, by God, because that’s what Americans do,” he said. “We cook this gigantic American bird, and we do all kinds of crazy things to make it taste good.”
Vance told the crowd he planned to deep-fry a turkey on Thursday, and used that anecdote to once again bash the bird.
“Here’s the thing,” he added. “If you’ve gotta deep-fry something to make it taste good, it probably isn’t that good. That’s a pretty good rule of thumb when it comes to food. Chicken is good all the time. Chicken is good when you deep fry it, but it’s also good outside of it.”
Vance is, of course, entitled to his food opinions, but people on social media had a bone to pick with his turkey taunts.