After some conservatives had beef with a false Biden administration proposal, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Monday denied that the president is seeking to restrict the amount of red meat Americans devour.

“There’s no desire, no effort, no press release, no policy paper — none of that — that would support the notion that the Biden administration is going to suggest that people eat less meat,” Vilsack said during a virtual briefing hosted by the North American Agricultural Journalists. “Or that USDA has some program designed to reduce meat consumption. It’s simply not the case.

“Sometimes in the political world, games get played and issues are injected into the conversation knowing full well that there’s no factual basis,” he added.

The baseless claim appears to have originated with a Daily Mail article written in response to President Joe Biden’s announcement last week that he plans to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030. The British tabloid listed some ways the U.S. might reach that goal and cited an April 2020 study by the University of Michigan and Tulane University that concluded that a 90% reduction in beef consumption and a 50% reduction in other animal products would prevent more than 2 billion tons of greenhouse gas pollution. 

The Daily Mail’s headline screamed that “Biden's climate plan could limit you to eat just one burger a MONTH.”

The research was conducted before Biden won the Democratic presidential nomination and does not mention his name, and the president has never publicly discussed the study. 

But late last week, several prominent Republicans and Fox News hosts had directly — and misleadingly — tied the study to Biden’s climate goal, arguing that it was an assault on their freedom.

A segment on Fox News featured a graphic with the title “Up In Your Grill: Biden’s Climate Requirements,” and included bullet points such as “one burger per month,” cut 90% of red meat from diet” and “max 4 lbs per year.” The graphic cited the study and claimed these points were part of “Biden’s Climate Requirements.”

The Fox graphic went viral and was retweeted by former Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Idaho Gov. Brad Little, all Republicans.

“Not gonna happen in Texas!” Abbott wrote on Twitter.

Other hosts across the network ran with the claim.

“No burgers on July Fourth. No steaks on the barbie,” said Larry Kudlow, a Fox Business host who served as director of the National Economic Council under former President Donald Trump. “I’m sure Middle America is just going to love that. Can you grill those Brussels sprouts?”

Fact checkers across the spectrum labeled the claim as completely false.

A White House official confirmed to Politifact — which rated the claim as “Pants on Fire,” its highest rating for inaccuracy — that the president’s climate plans do not include restrictions on consuming red meat.

Fact checkers from Snopes, CNN and the Washington Post were also quick to debunk the claim.

The only reference Biden made to agriculture at any point in his April 22 speech at the Virtual Leaders Summit on Climate was about farmers “deploying cutting-edge tools to make soil of our Heartland the next frontier in carbon innovation,” and did not mention meat.

But conservative lawmakers and figures were outraged by the now-debunked report.

“Why doesn’t Joe stay out of my kitchen?” tweeted Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO).

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) called Biden the “Hamburglar.”

"Not only does Emperor Biden not want us to celebrate the 4th of July, now he doesn't want us to have a burger on that day either," Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) wrote on Twitter.

“I’m pretty sure I ate 4 pounds of red meat yesterday,” Donald Trump Jr. wrote on Twitter. “That’s going to be a hard NO from me.”

Fox News aired a correction Monday.

“On Friday we told you about a study from the University of Michigan to give some perspective on President Biden's ambitious climate change goals,” Roberts said. “That research from 2020 found that cutting back how much red meat people eat would have a drastic impact on harmful greenhouse gas emissions."

"The data was accurate, but a graphic and a script incorrectly implied that it was part of Biden's plan for dealing with climate change," Roberts continued. "That is not the case.”

Biden has not yet released details on how he hopes to curb greenhouse gases. Vilsack said the farm industry, which accounts for about 10% of emissions, could reduce that number through innovations such as feed additives or methane capture technology.