STRAW MAN

GOP Rep’s Old Post Comes Back to Haunt Him After Weird Flex

Tim Burchett got sucked up in one of Jesse Watters’ silly fixations.

Rep. Tim Burchett was spotted defying one of Jesse Watters’ ridiculous “rules for men” after claiming on Fox News he lives by it.

The GOP lawmaker was asked on Capitol Hill about one of the many behaviors Watters views as insufficiently macho.

“He says men should not drink out of straws in public, or at all,” Fox News producer Johnny Belisario said to Burchett in an interview.

“I don’t drink out of a straw, brother,” the Tennessee lawmaker replied. “That’s what the women in my house do.”

As social media users were quick to point out, Burchett’s own Instagram page refutes that assertion. In November, he was pictured with a milkshake in hand—complete with straw—in an Election Day stop.

“Milkshakes before noon and great responses at the polls in Claiborne and Grainger Counties — can’t beat it!” he wrote at the time.

That’s a double whammy in Watters’ book. According to the Fox News host and his many pet peeves, “milkshakes are for kids.” And if you’re a “real man” in Watters’ eyes, you certainly wouldn’t drink a milkshake from a straw. That, according to the conservative personality, is “very effeminate.”

Those are among a long list of rules Watters has for men. He’s also complained about men who go grocery shopping with their wives, men who take bubble baths solo and men who eat soup in public.

And while he claims his rules are “not that serious,” he’s been accused of much more offensive misogyny plenty of times, often passing it off as a joke afterwards. Last summer, he suggested that men who vote for women might do so because they have “mommy issues” or are trying to be “accepted by other women.”

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Belisario also quizzed other GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill about Watters’ rules, including whether men should cross their legs or have male best friends.

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas suggested that “Jesse needs a friend.”

Burchett’s office did not immediately return a request for comment.

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Josephine HarveySenior News Reporter

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