Blanche
(Photo
by
Valerie
Plesch/Bloomberg
via
Getty
Images)
Todd
Blanche
had
quite
the
Meet
the
Press
appearance
over
the
weekend.
In
between
giving
James
Comey’s
legal
team
a
lot
to
look
at,
the
Acting
Attorney
General
of
the
United
States
offered
a
defense
of
voter
ID
laws,
which,
um,
maybe
didn’t
go
as
well
as
he
planned.
Blanche
told
Kristen
Welker,
“Like
every
time
you
walk
into
a
restaurant
or
a
club,
you
have
to
show
your
ID.
How
about
you
have
to
show
your
ID
to
vote?
That’s
not
anything
that’s
crazy.
And
that’s
what
we
should
be
talking
about.”
I
shouldn’t
have
to
say
this
out
loud
in
the
year
of
our
lord
2026,
but
restaurants
do
not
card
you
to
walk
in
the
door.
Bars
do.
Venues
that
serve
alcohol
do,
sometimes.
Strip
clubs,
famously,
do.
But
a
restaurant?
The
place
where
you
go
to
eat
food?
Nobody
is
checking
ID
at
the
hostess
stand.
You
just…
walk
in.
You
sit
down.
A
server
takes
your
order.
It
is
one
of
the
more
accessible
things
you
can
do
in
American
life,
which
is
presumably
why
there
are
over
one
million
of
them.
The
internet
noticed
immediately,
and
did
the
thing
the
internet
does
the
best.
Here
is
the
thing,
though:
Blanche
did
not
come
up
with
this
on
his
own.
He’s
mimicking
his
boss,
again.
President
Donald
Trump,
has
been
making
equally
baffling
analogies
about
everyday
commerce
and
identification
requirements
since
at
least
2018.
Trump
has
repeatedly
claimed
when
pushing
voter
ID
laws
that
Americans
need
to
show
photo
ID
at
grocery
stores,
incorrectly
saying
in
at
least
three
instances
that
consumers
needed
to
show
ID
to
buy
bread
or
cereal.
When
then-press
secretary
Sarah
Huckabee
Sanders
was
asked
to
explain
this,
she
suggested
Trump
was
referring
to
buying
beer
or
wine.
Three
months
later,
Trump
clarified
that
he
was
in
fact
talking
about
a
box
of
cereal.
In
2023,
the
president
claimed
identification
was
needed
to
buy
a
loaf
of
bread.
Just
last
November,
he
upgraded
the
claim:
speaking
to
Republican
senators
at
a
White
House
breakfast,
Trump
said,
“All
we
want
is
voter
ID.
You
go
to
a
grocery
store,
you
have
to
give
ID.
You
go
to
a
gas
station,
you
give
ID.”
So
Blanche’s
restaurant
theory
is,
if
anything,
a
lateral
move
from
the
established
canon
of
Trump-world
voter
ID
analogies.
The
president
covers
grocery
stores
and
gas
stations;
the
Acting
AG
has
expanded
the
universe
to
include
sit-down
dining.
Together,
they
are
painting
a
picture
of
an
administration
that
appears
to
have
very
limited
personal
experience
with
ordinary
retail
transactions.
What
makes
Blanche’s
version
particularly
special,
though,
is
the
specificity.
He
didn’t
just
say
restaurants
—
he
said
restaurants
and
clubs.
Which
is
an
interesting
choice
of
words
for
a
man
who,
reportedly,
has
been
trying
since
February
to
join
the
Metropolitan
Club,
one
of
Washington’s
oldest
and
most
exclusive
private
clubs,
and
is
currently
being
blocked
by
at
least
six
members
who
have
written
to
the
board
of
directors
to
object.
A
man
who
thinks
TGI
Fridays
checks
your
ID
before
seating
you
might
not
fully
grasp
why
six
members
of
one
of
Washington’s
oldest
institutions
are
writing
letters
to
keep
him
out.
But
back
to
the
restaurants.
The
voter
ID-via-hostess-stand
theory
is
not
just
factually
wrong,
it
is
also
a
little
revealing.
This
is
an
administration
that
has
spent
considerable
energy
arguing
that
voting
should
be
harder,
more
restricted,
and
more
heavily
policed…
and
the
best
real-world
analogy
its
top
law
enforcement
official
can
muster
is
a
thing
that
does
not
actually
happen.
The
premise
of
the
whole
argument,
that
requiring
ID
is
simply
the
normal,
universal
American
experience,
collapses
the
moment
you
point
out
that
you
can
walk
into
an
Applebee’s
without
so
much
as
a
library
card.
For
what
it’s
worth,
Blanche
is
not
new
to
saying
things
on
television
that
don’t
survive
contact
with
reality.
This
is
the
same
man
who
went
on
CNN
last
fall
to
float
the
theory
that
people
who
heckled
Donald
Trump
at
a
restaurant
might
constitute
a
RICO
enterprise,
suggesting
that
a
statute
designed
to
dismantle
the
Gambino
crime
family
could
apply
to
some
women
who
yelled
at
the
president
over
dinner.
So
maybe
adding
to
his
portfolio
the
bold
claim
that
American
restaurants
check
ID
at
the
door
is
just
the
next
evolution.