Jimmy John Liautaud: Obama Stopped Jimmy John's 'Dead in Our Tracks'

Jimmy John’s restaurant chain founder Jimmy John Liautaud told Breitbart News editor-in-chief Alex Marlow during an exclusive interview on Sunday he was “totally naïve to politics” and how politicians could stop his company “dead in our tracks” until former President Barack Obama changed the labor laws.

“The Obama administration changed the labor laws,” Liautaud told Marlow at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest in Phoenix, Arizona. “When the labor laws changed, the model changed. We ran the model for 3o years, they changed the numbers, and the model didn’t work the same.”

“I was totally naïve to politics,” Liautaud added. “I ran the business for 30 years, gave my managers 25 percent of the profit if the store, had no turnover, I had 3,000 stores just about open, and 3,000 in the pipeline, and all of the sudden, the laws changed, and it literally stopped us dead in our tracks.”

The Jimmy John’s founder added that he believed “Obama was a well-intended man, but he didn’t do his research.”

“He didn’t call me up, and say, ‘Jimmy, how can we get more money to the people?'” Liautaud said, before pointing out the difference between Obama and former President Donald Trump.

“You know what President Trump did when COVID hit? I got a call from the White House [asking about] will I be on the Small Business Council,” Liautaud said. “He wanted to know every day, what were the biggest issues in the industry today, and what’s the solution.”

Liautaud added that “every day, I would call into the White House. I had access to everybody in the industry, so I could find out what everybody needed.”

“And [Trump] received it — he really wanted to know from the people who knew how to fly the airplane, not from people that read about flying the airplane,” Liautaud said. “That’s the difference between the administrations.”

“So, I never knew to be aware of that people are going to take it from you before you know it,” Liautaud said of government.

The Jimmy John’s founder said that while he never thought he would be speaking at a political conference, “I want people to have the same dream that I had. I want people to have the same opportunity that I had.”

“I graduated second to last in my class, and I’m a billionaire in America,” Liautaud said. “That’s why I’m here, because I want America to be America, because we didn’t get here with mediocrity.”

“We got here by kicking ass, and with greatness,” Liautaud affirmed.

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.