In The Know

Tuberville offers to give Schumer a grilling lesson after viral barbecue photo

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) isn’t done roasting Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) over his barbecue snafu, offering to “teach” the New York Democrat a lesson on how to grill a burger. 

“He’s trying to show people that hey, he’s just an average guy that goes up and cooks and all that — you can tell he’s never cooked in his life,” Tuberville said of a since-deleted Father’s Day photo that Schumer posted on the social platform X, showing him grinning with a spatula in hand beside a grill. 

“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 barbecue with hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill!” Schumer, 73, said in the post.

Conservative critics torched Schumer for the snapshot, which appeared to show an uncooked hamburger on the grill topped with a slice of cheese. 

“First of all, he’s cooking on a gas grill,” Tuberville said Tuesday on “The Benny Show.”


“In the South, we call that communism. I cook with regular coal — lump coal and applewood chips,” the 69-year-old college football coach-turned-lawmaker said.

“I like to cook steaks, and chicken — I cook it all — sausage. But there’s a way to cook it, too. You got to soak your apple chips or your hickory chips for about 30 minutes then you put in your charcoal to give it that flavor,” Tuberville told conservative commentator Benny Johnson. 

Schumer’s office didn’t immediately respond to ITK’s request for comment about Tuberville’s cookout-related criticism. 

After Johnson suggested filming a “special on how to properly grill” aimed at Schumer, Tuberville responded, “We can invite him and teach him how to do it.”

“He wouldn’t know the difference between a hot dog and a hamburger patty, I’ll tell you right now,” Tuberville said.