Donald Trump Says Anheuser-Busch Deserves 'Second Chance'

Former President Donald Trump is the latest conservative urging followers to dial back their opposition to Anheuser-Busch and their products.

The company, which owns and distributes dozens of alcoholic beverage brands, caught flack from conservatives last summer when it partnered with the popular transgender social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney to promote its Bud Light products. Despite the partnership amounting to one short TikTok video in which the company provided the creator with one custom can of the product, it generated widespread antipathy among conservatives amid the Republican Party's heightening of its opposition to pro-LGBTQ+ policies.

Many online conservatives reacting to the news called for a boycott of the light beer brand and the broader Anheuser-Busch company, while others went so far as to call in threats to the company's locations. Critics, meanwhile, dismissed the reaction as, at worst, bigoted and, at best, overblown given the brief nature of the partnership.

In recent months, some conservative figures, like musician Kid Rock, have suggested to their followers that they back down on their opposition to Anheuser-Busch, which was noted to be a prominent donor to the Republican Party, with its employees and political action committee donating around 60 percent of their income to Republican candidates and causes. In a Tuesday post to Truth Social, Trump became one of the most prominent voices on the right to do this, calling Anheuser-Busch a "Great American Brand" while not specifically mentioning Bud Light.

"Anheuser-Busch is a Great American Brand that perhaps deserves a Second Chance?" Trump wrote. "What do you think? Perhaps, instead, we should be going after those companies that are looking to DESTROY AMERICA!"

Newsweek reached out to Anheuser-Busch via email on Tuesday for comment.

In April, the former president's son, Donald Trump Jr., spoke out in support of Anheuser-Busch, noting their history of donating to Republican causes and writing off the Mulvaney partnership as "a one-off colossal screw-up."

"Is this a one-off colossal screw up? Or is it something bigger," Trump Jr. asked. "This could be the act of one rogue woke lunatic in a marketing department filled with leftist staffers..."In woke corporate America, Anheuser-Busch supports Republicans. Last cycle their employees and their PAC gave about 60 percent to Republicans."

Speaking out in the weeks after the Bud Light situation sparked, Mulvaney herself suggested that she was keeping her distance from the matter and letting those online attacking her "tucker themselves out."

"But I'm doing OK. And I'm trying this new thing where I don't pressure myself to share anything before I'm ready," Mulvaney said in a post from late April 2023. "And I'm actually sitting with my emotions, not reacting, waiting to respond—and shockingly, I can't recommend it more. Like, therapy is paying off here, people."