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Accessibility statementSkip to main content Democracy Dies in Darkness Subscribe Sign in Close This article was published more than 4 years ago The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness FoodVoraciously Recipe Finder Going Out Guide Tom Sietsema Tim Carman Nourish Dinner in Minutes Wine Spirits FoodVoraciously Recipe Finder Going Out Guide Tom Sietsema Tim Carman Nourish Dinner in Minutes Wine Spirits TRUMP SHOWS HE’S CLUELESS ABOUT GROCERIES — LIKE SO MANY POLITICIANS BEFORE HIM By Maura Judkis August 1, 2018 at 3:23 p.m. EDT (Andrew Harnik/AP) Gift Article Share Is it any surprise that the man who lived in a gilded penthouse doesn’t know how grocery stores work? At a Florida rally on Tuesday, President Trump related voter ID laws to grocery shopping. “If you go out and you want to buy groceries, you need a picture on a card, you need ID,” Trump said at the event at the Florida State Fairgrounds. “You go out and you want to buy anything, you need ID and you need your picture.” WpGet the full experience.Choose your planArrowRight Purchases of alcohol, cigarettes or cold medicine, or payments made with a check require a photo ID. Purchases of, say, Cap’n Crunch or rhubarb or frozen chicken nuggets do not. “This man has never bought a carton of milk in his life, has he?” tweeted Kaili Joy Gray of Shareblue. Story continues below advertisement Of course he hasn’t. Respectfully: Duh. The grocery store is a minefield for politicians. In 1992, President George H.W. Bush, who had “lived the cloistered life of a top Washington bureaucrat for decades,” according to the New York Times, was described as being amazed by an electronic grocery scanner, technology that had been in use for more than a decade — though his team later clarified that he had been impressed by a particular scanner that could read torn bar codes. Still, in a recession, the characterization that he was out of touch took hold — all the way to the polls. Advertisement He’s not the only politician to fall in the grocery trap: During his 2007 presidential campaign, Rudolph W. Giuliani underestimated the cost of milk and bread by more than half. And even politicians who go into the store can be criticized for shopping at the wrong one, or buying the wrong thing. In a famous gaffe, then-candidate Barack Obama posed a question at an Iowa rally: “Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula? I mean, they’re charging a lot of money for this stuff.” There were no Whole Foods stores in Iowa at the time — and besides, why wasn’t he eating iceberg or romaine like a Real American, anyway? Story continues below advertisement It’s a great clueless-rich-person trope in pop culture, too. On the sitcom “30 Rock,” executive Jack Donaghy (played by Alec Baldwin), having expanded his television company’s empire to include couches, gives a rousing speech: “As we speak, our fellow countryman are rolling out our Kabletown Couches on the assembly line, earning an honest day’s pay so they can go to the store and buy milk for their family, which costs … oh, I don’t know, $90 a gallon.” In another episode, he refers to the price of a 10-pound bag of potatoes as $400, and says he gets them from the “grocery concierge.” Lucille Bluth, the cluelessly rich matriarch of “Arrested Development,” has similar grocery problems. “I mean, it’s one banana, Michael,” she says to her son. “What could it cost? $10?” The Washington Post’s John Wagner reports that at a briefing Wednesday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she was “not sure” when Trump last went to a grocery store, and added that she wasn’t sure it mattered, either. She later said that the comment was in reference to purchasing alcohol, though Trump did not mention alcohol in his remarks and has previously claimed he does not drink it, and has never smoked a cigarette. Others, like Stormy Daniels’s lawyer Michael Avenatti, were quick to criticize the remarks, and people on Twitter piled on. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher “used to wield a shopping basket and talk about the price of the pound and say something needed to be done about it,” British columnist Tim Montgomerie told the BBC. Documents released by the Margaret Thatcher Foundation show that the prime minister was briefed on the prices of common goods like eggs, milk and beer. And weeks after her 2016 loss to President Trump, Hillary Clinton was spotted shopping for ingredients for her Thanksgiving dinner in Chappaqua, N.Y. Former vice president Joe Biden attended the grand opening of a Costco in the District and ate a bunch of free samples. (Politicians: They’re just like us! Except when they aren’t.) Advertisement Story continues below advertisement Grocery stores and certain products have come to be political signifiers on their own, too. Trump won only 22 percent of counties with a Whole Foods, wrote Michael Hendrix of the Manhattan Institute. There are “Whole Foods Republicans” and “Sam’s Club’s Republicans.” Belgian endive became a constant joke in the 1988 election, after candidate Michael Dukakis suggested struggling corn and soybean farmers try growing the less-common produce — and sales of the vegetable shot up immediately. If knowing the price of common goods is an indicator of how in touch a politician is, perhaps a better indicator for Trump would be fast food. He is known to enjoy McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken. But if you ask him the price of a Big Mac, there’s a good chance Trump wouldn’t know the answer any better than he’d understand a grocery store: Aides were responsible for picking up his meals. More from Food: A customer couldn’t find any ginger in Canada Dry ginger ale, so she’s suing World to Gordon Ramsay: You are no Anthony Bourdain GiftOutline Gift Article Loading... Advertisement TOP STORIES Recipes New meals to try, from easy to elaborate I baked a new bread every week for a year. Here’s why. Four Sisters, beloved Vietnamese restaurant, closing after 30 years How Chinatown businesses are using farm-to-market ingenuity to survive Refresh Try a different topic Sign in or create a free account to save your preferences Advertisement Advertisement Company * About The Post * Newsroom Policies & Standards * Diversity and Inclusion * Careers * Media & Community Relations * WP Creative Group * Accessibility Statement Get The Post * * Become a Subscriber * Gift Subscriptions * Mobile & Apps * Newsletters & Alerts * Washington Post Live * Reprints & Permissions * Post Store * Books & E-Books * Newspaper in Education * Print Archives (Subscribers Only) * Today’s Paper * Public Notices Contact Us * Contact the Newsroom * Contact Customer Care * Contact the Opinions team * Advertise * Licensing & Syndication * Request a Correction * Send a News Tip * Report a Vulnerability Terms of Use * Digital Products Terms of Sale * Print Products Terms of Sale * Terms of Service * Privacy Policy * Cookie Settings * Submissions & Discussion Policy * RSS Terms of Service * Ad Choices washingtonpost.com © 1996-2023 The Washington Post * washingtonpost.com * © 1996-2023 The Washington Post * About The Post * Contact the Newsroom * Contact Customer Care * Request a Correction * Send a News Tip * Report a Vulnerability * Download the Washington Post App * Policies & Standards * Terms of Service * Privacy Policy * Cookie Settings * Print Products Terms of Sale * Digital Products Terms of Sale * Submissions & Discussion Policy * RSS Terms of Service * Ad Choices 4.14.30 Already have an account? 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