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A Washington, DC pizzeria owner said she received more support than backlash for her message congratulating President-elect Trump on his 2024 victory, arguing the praise is indicative of the fact that voters are “tired” of polarized politics.
Mariya Rusciano, who runs Menomale Pizza together with her husband Ettore, joined “The Faulkner Focus” to discuss how the public reacted to her viral X post.
“People started wishing … for our restaurant to go out of business, and now we’ve been here since 2012,” Rusciano told Harris Faulkner on Friday.
“Then they started saying that DC doesn’t need fascist pizzerias. They asked, how can we, as immigrants, congratulate President Trump? Then, of course, they called us all kinds of names… One lady in particular yelled obscenities at my husband in the street. “
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“But outside of that, it’s mostly limited to social media,” she continued. “But there were upsides to what we did because… As the post started to go viral across DC and the region, we received many more messages of support far outweighing the negative comments, which really showed me that people, even in places like DC are tired of the divisive rhetoric and it’s high time we come together and start respecting each other as fellow Americans.”
“The people have had their say. @realDonaldTrump won the election and the electoral college. Congratulations!” Written by the owner of Menomale Pizza. “Can we gift the @WhiteHouse a nice Italian wood-fired pizza oven?”
The post was flooded with angry comments from DC residents, where over 92% of the electorate voted yes Vice President Kamala Harris.
A local asked Rusciano if he was “trying to get out of business.”
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“What a weird tweet! You’ve been on my radar because I spend a lot of time in Brookland but I’m so confused – are you trying to get out of work?” user X named Lisa posted in response.
Several others threatened to boycott the pizzeria or cursed the owners of the business for their “tone deaf” remark.
But Rusciano said she was merely following the lead of what other businesses in Washington, DC, have historically done when engaging in political debate.
“Frankly, restaurants in D.C. regularly speak out and post about politics,” Rusciano said. “There was a certain establishment, I can’t remember the name now, that was announcing that they were going to throw champagne bottles if Harris won, so frankly we were just… jumping on a trending topic, trying to promote ourselves.”
“And while I expected some disgruntled comments, I didn’t see it going as viral as it did,” she continued.
Rusciano previously clarified to post a similar message that Harris had won the election and that she didn’t feel like they were “doing something unique” among DC businesses by sharing a post about the election in a political city.
Faulkner asked if she felt pressure to protect her workers after the uproar on social media.
“Things have been calm and it’s business as usual,” she replied.
FOX Business’ Kristine Parks contributed to this report.
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