WASHINGTON -- Texas convenience-store chain Buc-ee’s, known for its huge stores, endless gas pumps and exceptionally clean restrooms, became a political prop on NBC’s "Meet the Press" on April 9. The mention set off a social-media firestorm.
New York Times columnist David Brooks, a guest on the Sunday morning political program, used the Lake Jackson, Texas-based chain with 32 locations in the Lone Star State to contrast the warring factions inside President Donald Trump’s White House.
Click through for the details …
The faction represented by Trump's son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner eats at "a fancy restaurant in New York called Cipriani," said Brooks. "Then there is a bunch of truckstops in Texas called Buc-ee's, which is the Steve Bannon wing, and they are very different parts of America. And which is this administration going to orient around? That's fundamentally a philosophical question, and it is hard to have a single strategic administration where you're trying to be Cipriani's and Buc-ee's at the same time."
Click here to watch the video (the segment mentioning Buc-ee's starts around the 38:30 mark) and click here to read the transcript.
This is not the first time that Buc-ee’s has become politicized.
In 2016, National Review writer Kevin Williamson looked at both sides of the argument on increasing wages through the lens of Buc-ee’s.
And in 2014, a social-media war erupted in Texas after state Sen. Dan Patrick (R), who ran against incumbent Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst (R) in a Republican primary runoff election, posted two photos of himself on Facebook with mascot Buc-ee the Beaver (above) and the chain's owners, Arch "Beaver" Aplin and Don Wasek.
Dewhurst backed off of a threatened boycott after a lawyer for Buc-ee’s issued a statement that Aplin and Wasek were endorsing Patrick personally, not speaking for the chain.
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