Sean Hannity and Olive Garden both clarify he didn't have a "Lifetime Pasta Pass" revoked, while Anderson Cooper says he wasn't dissing the restaurant chain

Mediaite

During the U.S. Capitol siege on Wednesday, Anderson Cooper made a comment that the rioters were "going to go back to the Olive Garden and to the Holiday Inn they’re staying at." The comment sparked online backlash, with Cooper branded a snob for his apparently dissing the popualr restaurant chain. That prompted Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity to defend Olive Garden on their respective Thursday night Fox News shows. On Friday, Cooper hit back, claiming Hannity and Carlson twisted his words. "I should have been more clear with something I said in the immediate moments after the attack as people who had broken into the Capitol were simply being allowed to leave, it seemed, just walk away," Cooper said on his CNN show. "Celebrating the criminal act they had taken part in. I was trying to remark about the seemingly casualness of the behavior that we were all witnessing at that moment after the attack. The high-fiving, the laughing, the celebratory atmosphere, as if they had actually accomplished something." Meanwhile, Twitter user Louie Mantia, Jr. decided to create a fake Olive Garden statement that said that Hannity's "Lifetime Pasta Pass" had been revoked. Mantia's fake statement went viral throughout Friday, forcing Olive Garden's social media team to respond to outraged Twitter users. Olive Garden explained that Hannity couldn't have had his "Lifetime Pasta Pass" revoked because the restaurant chain stopped using the pass in 2019. On his show Friday night, Hannity also made it clear he never had a "Lifetime Pasta Pass."