The president of the United States is a liar who claims to be a billionaire and rode that cache all the way to a reality show in which washed-up, Z-list celebrities compete for a chance not to be on the end of his catchphrase.
Because this is the world that we live in, earlier this year, the internet went apeshit over a guy who sprinkles salt on meat while holding his hand in the follow through as if he just shot a 3-pointer. Because white people had apparently never seen this mythical activity called “seasoning food,” that was all it took for Turkish chef — real name Nusret Gokce —to become the internet sensation, #SaltBae.
The way Salt Bae seasons his meat (and yes, I wrote the sentence that way to make you feel gross) has become a thing, now. Salt Bae now seasons his guests’ the meat wearing a v-neck shirt and completes the process while doing Tom Jones-like, old white man, hip thrusts. It’s borderline filthy and as such, the same people that voted for a man that enjoys being smacked on the ass with a rolled-up Forbes magazine, love this shit.
Salt Bae has 15.7 million followers on Instagram, “where the chef posts photos of himself hanging out with the likes of Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, Drake and DJ Khaled,” The Washington Post reports.
Recently Salt Bae gyrated over the Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro’s meat during a recent visit at Salt Bae’s restaurant, Nusr-Et, in Istanbul.
On Monday, with people still suffering from the aftermath of Hurricane Florence; the world waiting with baited breath to see if Christine Blasey Ford will sit before the Senate Judiciary Committee to answer questions about the sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. And with Trump still in office, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio decided to pick a fight with Salt Bae.
“I don’t know who this weirdo #Saltbae is, but the guy he is so proud to host is not the President of #Venezuela,” Rubio wrote on Twitter. Rubio was responding to a video clip that showed Salt Bae, saltbae-ing it up over the Venezuelan president’s meat log (totally purposeful).
Rubio is lying.
He has to be lying. Who doesn’t know who Salt Bae is? Stop. Now stop again. And then stop some more.
I never wanted to know who Salt Bae was. In fact I don’t want to call him Salt Bae. The man has over 15 million followers, which is 3 times the number of votes Rubio received in his last election. Trust me, Rubio knows Salt Bae. Some staffer sent a meme, gif, something of Salt Bae sprinkling congressional folders over his desk at some point.
Rubio continued: “But the guy he is so proud to host is not the President of Venezuela. He’s is actually the overweight dictator of a nation where 30% of the people eat only once a day & infants are suffering malnutrition.”
Rubio isn’t wrong here. The number of children dying from malnutrition in Venezuela is staggering. And the government not only knows about it, they don’t care.
“For almost two years, the government did not publish a single epidemiological bulletin tracking statistics like infant mortality,” The New York Times reports. “Then in April of this year, a link suddenly appeared on the Health Ministry’s official website, leading to the unpublished bulletins. They showed that 11,446 children under the age of 1 had died in 2016 — a 30 percent increase in one year — as the economic crisis accelerated.”
And there doesn’t seem to be any relief in sight. Food is so expensive in Venezuela and the poverty rate is so high that government is essentially allowing people to die rather than figuring out how to feed them.
“In Venezuela, a McDonald’s Big Mac costs $3.60, which is equivalent to a fifth of the monthly minimum wage,” The Washington Post reported last week.
So Rubio should be upset, but what he did next was not only a Trumpian move, it was low even for Rubio. Rubio doxxed Salt Bae who has a restaurant in the state where Rubio is a senator.
Many people thought that the president of a country that is literally starving shouldn’t be eating a restaurant where a steak can run as much as $275. And those people are right, but Salt Bae doesn’t do politics he just seasons meat. It’s like asking your mechanic to do your taxes and then getting mad when he doesn’t understand how to carry the one. Salt Bae is a machine. A meat-seasoning machine. That’s it. I assume that Salt Bae’s closet is full of V-neck tees and it’s literally impossible for him to hand you anything. Salt Bae can only Salt Bae the keys to you in his three-point arc hand and do you know how frustrating that must be when you’re running late?
After Rubio doxxed Salt Bae, it didn’t go well.
“You are using the platform you have earned as a public trust to incite harassment of a constituent who, it appears, isn’t breaking the law, but has views you don’t like,” said one respondent, the Post reports. “This is a shocking betrayal of your responsibility — downright Trumpian.”
Rubio didn’t break any rules, according to the Post, because you can’t out someone if their phone number is public. So technically, Rubio didn’t doxx Salt Bae, but fuck him anyway.
Besides, it didn’t work anyway.
“Six hours after Rubio’s tweet, the steakhouse’s voice mail was, somewhat remarkably, not full,” the Post reports.
That’s probably because people hate Rubio and don’t give a shit what he’s talking about. Also, people know that Salt Bae is a one trick pony who can’t do anything other than shake it like a salt shaker.
And that’s probably what made Rubio so salty.