Divisive New York Times columnist David Brooks has somehow found himself in the middle of a second controversy surrounding one of his meals with a tale so improbable that a significant portion of Twitter / X users have devoted their mornings to debunking one of his tweets.

Last night at around 9:30 p.m. EST, Brooks tweeted an image of a burger and fries he'd ordered at Newark Airport, saying the meal had cost him an astounding $78. "This is why Americans think the economy is terrible," he added.

While it's not uncommon to see items sell for significant markups in airports, $78 for a burger and fries seemed ludicrous to many on social media. Some suspected Brooks' anecdote was intended to make a point about inflation in Joe Biden's America, but noted that the eye-popping price of Brooks' dinner would likely be due to whatever's in his glass.

Brooks did not make clear what he was drinking, but based on the overall price of his meal, users suspected it was a high-end liquor — and that he may have ordered multiple glasses.

A note added to the tweet by Twitter's Community Notes suggested the burger and fries alone would have cost Brooks about $17. The note-writer performed a surprisingly thorough investigation of the burger and the restaurant decor to deduce that Brooks was likely in Newark Airport's Smokehouse Restaurant where the menu advertises a burger and fries costing $51 less than $78.

Others have guessed he went to a different restaurant in the airport, but each guessed restaurant's burger and fries combo sells at a max of $20.

The question remains as to why Brooks would attempt to use his airport dinner to make a point about economic anxiety in America, though some suspected the ~$50 worth of whiskey may have had something to do with that.

Others suggested the more grievous sin of the tweet was the evidence Brooks had apparently removed the veggies from his burger in order to dump three packets of ketchup on it.