Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has admitted to eating “magic mushrooms” during a recent trip to China. Yellen said she was not aware that the dish she ate contained psychedelic mushrooms, but she found out later.
In an interview on Monday, CNN’s Erin Burnett pressed Yellen to talk about her experience eating “magic mushrooms” with a group of people at a Beijing restaurant earlier this summer. She said she thought the mushrooms were regular mushrooms, but she soon realized that they were not.
“The person who had arranged our dinner did the order and there was a delicious mushroom dish. I was not aware that these mushrooms had hallucinogenic properties. I learned that later,” Yellen said.
Burnett asked Yellen if she had any visions, perhaps when she was sleeping, With laughter, Yellen insisted that she did not start tripping. She said she felt fine and was able to continue with her meeting with the Chinese officials.
“I read that if the mushrooms are cooked properly, which I’m sure they were at this very good restaurant, that they have no impact,” the secretary said. “But all of us enjoyed the mushrooms — the restaurant and none of us felt any ill effects from having eaten them.”
Here are just some of the reactions:
“A Biden cabinet member was served hallucinogenic mushrooms in China? Can’t make this stuff up,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said in a post to X.
“Intelligence officers use psychedelics to compromise their targets,” Eric Garland, a self-described geopolitical analyst with nearly 300,000 followers on X, said in a post. “If they targeted Janet Yellen as part of an operation, diplomatic punishments should be swift and harsh.”
Steve Guest, a conservative commentator, observed, “Joe Biden’s America: The Treasury Secretary gets booked on CNN to talk about shrooming while in China,” while the Republican National Committee’s Jake Schneider quipped, “This is a very serious administration.”
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen explains eating a dish that contained “magic mushrooms” on her recent trip to China:
“There was a delicious mushroom dish. I was not aware that these mushrooms had hallucinogenic properties. I learned that later.” pic.twitter.com/WFRe92hHT8
— The Recount (@therecount) August 15, 2023
