WASHINGTON, D.C. - Lawmakers reacted to Anheuser-Busch's sharp decline in sales in the wake of the controversy over the company's decision to partner with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
Mulvaney revealed she was sent a can of Bud Light featuring an image of her face in celebration for Mulvaney’s year of "girlhood" and in preparation for March Madness. The promotion resulted in several calls for boycotts, particularly among conservative commentators.
The beer company and its brands Bud Light and Budweiser faced net losses for four weeks in April leading up to April 29, a Beer Business Daily report found. This followed initial reports that showed Bud Light in-store sales dropped 26% in the week of April 22.
"A-B volumes went down 12.5% while Molson Coors was up 7.6% and Constellation up 3.8%. Bud Light was down 21.4% while Coors Light was up 10.9% and Miller Lite up 12.8%," the report said.
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"If there's ever a case for a corporation to stay away from this type of issue - they made beer the last time I checked," Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., told Fox News Digital. "They don't make policy. If they want to make policy, get into politics. If they believe in it that strongly. I'm surprised that's it's just 12 percent."
"The ones in my state, the consumers…What happened with Bud Light is they lost a lot of customers," he continued. "There are a lot of past consumers of Bud Light who will never drink another Bud Light beer in their life, including me."
Several other lawmakers offered their takes, some saying they didn't "care," and others adamant that big companies should stick to what they know best.
"I don't really care one way or the other if a corporation weighs in on political matters, and I don't really drink much beer," Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., simply said.
"I think generally corporations should stick to their knitting and sell products and develop great brands, and I think when they try to change and weigh in on social issues, that's always going to be a mistake for businesses," Rep. John Rose, R-Tenn., said.
"It's up to them, it's their brand," Rep. John Duarte, R-Calif., offered. "They can do as they want. And if sales go up, sales go up. If sales go down, sales go down, but they're a private company and they can play their brand how they like."
Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, said the company had turned off its conservative consumers.
"Anheuser-Busch did learn a lesson, which I think other corporations should take to heart too which is that you can't go to war against the people who buy your product and expect them to keep on buying," Vance said. "Conservative voters, Republican voters are not idiots, and they know when a corporation is going to war against their values. Anheuser-Busch made a big mistake, and they're paying for it."
Rep. Mark Alford, R-Mo., used the Anheuser-Busch furor to sound off on another recent culture controversy. The U.S. Navy received backlash for approaching a "drag queen influencer" to help persuade new recruits to join the military. Yeoman 2nd Class Joshua Kelley, who goes by the stage name "Harpy Daniels" and has a large TikTok following, announced in November 2022 that he was the Navy’s "Digital Ambassador."
"Anytime that companies weigh in on issues involving culture and wokeism, it is a big risk," Alford told Fox News Digital. "The Navy has done that with a drag queen trying to recruit others into the Navy. I'm on the House Armed Services Committee, we are going to get to the bottom of that… It's unacceptable. We need to get out of that business. We need to get back in the business of recruiting for the military in a right way."
"That's the free market," Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., told Fox News Digital. "Quite frankly, they pissed off a lot of people, and therefore people stopped drinking their beer. Maybe it'd be smarter for people, if they're concerned about their bottom line, to not get involved in culture wars, but just to sell their products."
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The representative fondly recalled Anheuser-Busch's old advertising campaign that used The Budweiser Frogs, three lifelike puppet frogs named "Bud", "Weis", and "Er," that featured in several commercials throughout the 1990s.
"I would argue that they should bring back the frogs," Malliotakis said. "That was my favorite commercial. And that wasn't controversial. It didn't piss anyone off. It actually helped Anheuser-Busch, and it helped sell Bud Light."
"Bring back the frogs!" she shouted again over her shoulder.
Fox News Digital's Lindsay Kornick and Christopher Diego Lopez contributed to this report.
