If you think that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is in trouble with his party, wait until he gets out to his patio.
Sure, he’s apparently down in the polls in a hypothetical primary matchup against Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2026, and his own party loathes him for giving in to reality about a government shutdown. That’s the real crisis the 74-year-old Democrat lawmaker is facing.
However, Tuesday was National Hamburger Day, for those of you who celebrate. And that meant it was time for a throwback — to a Father’s Day post Schumer famously deleted.
“Our family has lived in an apartment building for all our years, but my daughter and her wife just bought a house with a backyard and for the first time we’re having a barbeque with hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill!” he said in the 2024 post.
In case you needed to know how much of a fake Schumer was, the photo — which was supposed to be set up as a candid shot — showed him putting cheese on a raw hamburger patty.
Senator Chuck Schumer roasted online after posing for a photo grilling burgers on a barbecue.
The Democrat politican posed with a raw beef burger topped with cheese on Father’s Day in an effort to appear relatable to voters. pic.twitter.com/JCZtI3vFLs
— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) June 17, 2024
Say what you will about how President Donald Trump eats pizza — and trust me, those of us who grew up in the New York area say plenty, even if we like the guy — at least it’s not a fast-track to food poisoning.
Of course, nobody believed that Schumer was actually going to eat the patties and everyone realized it was a pathetic attempt to seem relatable, but that didn’t stop him from being grilled (get it? Ahahaha) by the official Senate Republicans X account.
Do you like to barbecue outdoors?
“Happy National Hamburger Day, @chuckschumer,” they posted. “We grill like we vote: RIGHT.”
Happy National Hamburger Day, @chuckschumer.
We grill like we vote: RIGHT. pic.twitter.com/C15pvM3kOU
— Senate Republicans (@NRSC) May 28, 2025
The video was the perfect touch.
And by the way: If you’re into this sort of thing, you can also get beer cozies to remind people that you aren’t a member of the party that puts cheese on raw hamburger:
This summer, show your neighbors that you grill like you vote: RIGHT! 🇺🇸👇https://t.co/Kb3U618ygI
— Senate Republicans (@NRSC) May 28, 2025
Of course, the hamburger fiasco highlights a deeper problem that Schumer faces.
One of the laziest jokes in politics (one that I’ve used more than a few times myself, to be fair) is that “the most dangerous place in Washington is between Chuck Schumer and a camera.” It’s been used on and off since the 1990s, according to The Washington Post — and it used to be true.
This isn’t really the knock on Schumer that you think it is, first off. Being a politician is not like being an indie rock band; you don’t gain credibility with hipsters by being obscure. (“Oh, you probably wouldn’t even have heard of my favorite current U.S. senator. He’s not even in the top 100 sitting senators.”)
Say what you will about his ability to garner attention, it’s part of the guy’s job. It’s why he’s in the position he’s in now.
No, the problem is that the joke has morphed into something new: The most dangerous place in Washington is being Chuck Schumer in front of a camera.
Whether it’s threatening Supreme Court justices over abortion rights before an assassination attempt on one or his old opinions on trade resurfacing at the same time President Trump is doing the exact same thing and he’s in opposition to it, Schumer hasn’t exactly had a great few years in front of his favorite instrument. The hamburger debacle was just the pickle on top.
Schumer’s Democrats now have an approval rating roughly equivalent to that of E. coli and AOC is beating him in any metric of a hypothetical matchup between herself and the Senate Minority Leader in a 2026 New York Democratic primary. In other words, he might have a lot of time on his hands to finally learn how to use that grill sooner rather than later.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
