Kamala Harris has multiple times claimed that she worked at McDonald's during her time at college.[1] Trump claims Kamala Harris never worked at McDonald's which led to Trump to work at McDonalds for around half an hour.
On October 20, 2024, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump conducted a calculated campaign appearance at a McDonald's restaurant in Feasterville-Trevose, Pennsylvania, where he donned an apron over his shirt and tie, prepared french fries, and served customers through the drive-thru window just 16 days before the November 5 election against Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris. During this high-visibility event in Bucks County—one of Pennsylvania's most critical swing regions—Trump directly challenged Harris's biographical claim of working at McDonald's in Alameda, California during summer 1983, stating "I've now worked for 15 minutes more than Kamala," continuing his pattern of questioning opponents' personal histories similar to his previous "birther" allegations about President Obama. The McDonald's visit, arranged by Trump supporter and fundraiser Jim Worthington at a locally owned franchise, drew over a thousand supporters lining the street outside while generating distinctly different coverage across major news outlets—the Associated Press provided balanced reporting with both campaigns' perspectives, Time Magazine emphasized Trump's longstanding relationship with the chain, the New York Post offered supportive coverage calling Trump the "commander-in-beef," and PBS contextualized the event within Trump's history of making unsubstantiated claims—illustrating the media fragmentation facing voters in a presidential race where Pennsylvania's 19 electoral votes could determine whether Trump or Harris would occupy the White House after January 20, 2025.
On October 20, 2024, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump staged a strategic campaign appearance at a McDonald's restaurant in Feasterville-Trevose, Pennsylvania, working behind the counter and serving customers through the drive-thru window. This high-visibility event occurred just 16 days before the November 5, 2024 presidential election, representing a calculated effort in Trump's campaign against Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris. During the visit, Trump donned an apron over his shirt and tie, learned to prepare fries, salted them, and put them into boxes using a scoop. The McDonald's visit generated extensive coverage across major news outlets including Associated Press, Time Magazine, New York Post, and PBS, creating a significant media moment in the final stretch of the 2024 presidential campaign.
The McDonald's campaign stop took place in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, one of the most critical swing regions in the 2024 presidential election map. Political analysts have identified Pennsylvania as a crucial battleground state in the 2024 election, with its electoral votes potentially determining the outcome. Trump's carefully orchestrated appearance targeted working-class voters in this decisive region. According to the source documents, a large crowd lined the street outside the restaurant, which was closed to the public specifically for Trump's visit.
Trump's Pennsylvania strategy that day extended beyond the McDonald's appearance. Following the visit, Trump was scheduled to attend an evening town hall in Lancaster and the Pittsburgh Steelers home game against the New York Jets. This multi-region approach demonstrated Trump's campaign focus on Pennsylvania's diverse voting demographics in the 2024 election cycle.
A central element of Trump's McDonald's visit was his explicit challenge to Vice President Kamala Harris's campaign narrative regarding her previous employment at McDonald's. According to the source documents, Harris has stated she worked at a McDonald's in Alameda, California, during the summer of 1983 while she was in college. Trump has fixated on this claim in recent weeks, repeatedly questioning its veracity without offering concrete evidence.
Trump directly referenced this controversy during his McDonald's appearance, stating: "I've now worked for 15 minutes more than Kamala," implying that Harris never actually worked at the restaurant chain. In an MSNBC interview cited in the articles, Harris pushed back on Trump's claims, saying she did work at the fast-food chain four decades ago when she was in college. She stated: "Part of the reason I even talk about having worked at McDonald's is because there are people who work at McDonald's in our country who are trying to raise a family."
The articles note that representatives for McDonald's did not respond to inquiries about whether the company had employment records for one of its restaurants from 40 years ago, making the claim difficult to verify independently.
The October 2024 McDonald's appearance built upon Trump's well-documented relationship with the fast-food chain. According to the Time Magazine article, former Trump campaign officials Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie said in their 2017 book that Trump's go-to McDonald's order consisted of "two Big Macs, two Fillet-O-Fish and a chocolate malted [shake]."
Additional historical connections mentioned in the source documents include:
During Trump's presidency in 2019, he controversially catered McDonald's meals for champion college athletes visiting the White House. The NY Post article notes that during the government shutdown that spilled into 2019, Trump ordered over 300 burgers in addition to fries and other menu items from McDonald's to honor the Clemson Tigers for winning the national college football championship.
In February 2023, Trump visited a McDonald's in East Palestine, Ohio, following a toxic chemical spill. The Time Magazine article also mentions that Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner wrote in his 2022 memoir that when Trump contracted COVID-19 in 2020, ordering in from McDonald's signaled that he was recovering.
Multiple articles note Trump's germaphobic tendencies, with the AP article specifically mentioning Trump as a "notorious germophobe." During his 2024 visit, Trump expressed amazement that he didn't have to touch the fries with his hands, saying: "We got the salt on it. Never touches the human hand. Nice and full."
The four major news organizations demonstrated distinctly different approaches in their coverage of the same 2024 campaign event:
AP News provided detailed reporting of the event with attention to both campaigns' perspectives. The article included contextual information about Trump's history of making claims without evidence about opponents and unique details about how the McDonald's visit was arranged. According to AP, Jim Worthington, a Trump supporter and fundraiser who owns a nearby athletic complex, arranged Trump's visit to the locally owned McDonald's franchise. The article also included a statement from McDonald's franchise owner Derek Giacomantonio explaining his decision to host the event: "It is a fundamental value of my organization that we proudly open our doors to everyone who visits the Feasterville community."
Time Magazine's coverage focused heavily on Trump's longstanding relationship with McDonald's, providing historical context for his affinity for the chain. The article characterized the McDonald's dispute as "Birtherism, meet burgerism," referencing Trump's history of questioning opponents' biographies. It devoted significant space to explaining why Trump prefers McDonald's, citing Michael Wolff's 2018 book "Fire and Fury" which stated Trump "had a longtime fear of being poisoned" and felt safe with premade food from McDonald's.
The New York Post offered the most supportive coverage of Trump, using playful language such as "commander-in-beef" and "October surp-fries" to describe the event. The article emphasized crowd enthusiasm, stating "well over a thousand MAGA-Donald's faithful" lined the street in Lower Southampton Township. It provided extensive quotes from supporters, including one who said, "Mr. President, thank you for taking a bullet for us," and detailed Trump's interactions with drive-thru customers.
PBS focused heavily on Trump's history of making unsubstantiated claims about opponents. The article placed the McDonald's employment dispute in the context of Trump's previous promotion of the "birther" conspiracy about President Barack Obama, claims about Ted Cruz's father, and false assertions about Nikki Haley's eligibility for the presidency. PBS quoted Republican strategist Barrett Marson calling the McDonald's focus a "puzzling detour" and questioning its strategic value: "I don't think there's an undecided voter out there that will make their decision based on whether or not Kamala Harris actually worked at McDonald's in the 1980s."
The Harris campaign responded to Trump's McDonald's appearance with a counter-messaging strategy focusing on economic contrasts. According to the AP article, Harris spokesman Joseph Costello said the former president's McDonald's visit "showed exactly what we would see in a second Trump term: exploiting working people for his own personal gain." The statement continued: "Trump doesn't understand what it's like to work for a living, no matter how many staged photo ops he does, and his entire second term plan is to give himself, his wealthy buddies, and giant corporations another massive tax cut."
The PBS article quoted another Harris spokesman, Ian Sams, saying: "When Trump feels desperate, all he knows how to do is lie. He can't understand what it's like to have a summer job because he was handed millions on a silver platter, only to blow it."
Multiple publications connected Trump's questioning of Harris's McDonald's employment history to a broader pattern of challenging opponents' biographical details throughout his political career. The AP and PBS articles specifically mentioned:
The "birther" conspiracy that baselessly claimed President Barack Obama was from Africa, was not an American citizen, and therefore was ineligible to be president.
Claims during the 2016 campaign that Texas Sen. Ted Cruz's father, who was born in Cuba, had links to President John F. Kennedy's assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.
False claims in January 2024 that Nikki Haley's parents were not citizens when she was born, therefore allegedly making her ineligible to be president, despite her being the South Carolina-born daughter of Indian immigrants and automatically a native-born citizen.
Claims during a presidential debate with Harris that immigrants who had settled in Springfield, Ohio, were eating residents' pets, which Trump suggested in an interview was true even though he could provide no confirmation.
This pattern analysis provides important context for understanding Trump's campaign strategy in the 2024 presidential election against Kamala Harris.
The McDonald's campaign stop exemplifies a central theme in the 2024 presidential race: competing narratives about working-class representation. Harris has emphasized her McDonald's experience to connect with working-class voters, stating in the MSNBC interview quoted in multiple articles: "Part of the reason I even talk about having worked at McDonald's is because there are people who work at McDonald's in our country who are trying to raise a family."
According to the AP article, when asked about minimum wages after seeing McDonald's employees in action, Trump did not directly answer but said: "These people work hard. They're great." He added that "I just saw something... a process that's beautiful." This response indicates Trump's approach to working-class messaging without committing to specific policy proposals regarding wages.
Trump's McDonald's appearance in Bucks County highlights Pennsylvania's crucial importance in the 2024 presidential election. The AP article specifically notes that Bucks County is "a key swing voter area north of Philadelphia," underscoring its strategic importance. The choice of this location for such a high-profile campaign event demonstrates the campaigns' focus on winning crucial Pennsylvania votes in the November 2024 election.
The articles do not provide polling data or specific electoral analysis beyond identifying Pennsylvania as an important battleground state. However, the extent of coverage given to this single campaign event in a specific Pennsylvania county reflects the media's understanding of the state's potential decisive role in the 2024 electoral outcome.
The McDonald's controversy illuminates how personal narratives and biographical details have become central to presidential politics in the 2024 election. Harris has incorporated her claimed McDonald's employment into her campaign messaging to establish working-class credentials and create contrast with Trump's privileged background. Trump's decision to work behind the counter himself represents a direct challenge to this narrative.
The PBS article quotes Harris saying: "I think part of the difference between me and my opponent includes our perspective on the needs of the American people and what our responsibility, then, is to meet those needs." This statement frames the McDonald's employment history as more than just a biographical detail but as representative of fundamental differences in understanding voters' economic circumstances.
Trump's McDonald's campaign stop demonstrates the complex relationship between candidate messaging, media framing, and voter perception in the 2024 presidential election. While all examined publications reported the basic facts of the October 20, 2024 event, their significantly different approaches to contextualizing and analyzing its significance highlight the fragmented media landscape facing 2024 voters.
The varied editorial focuses—from the NY Post's enthusiastic support to PBS's critical contextualization—show how identical campaign events can generate substantially different narratives depending on the publication covering them. This media fragmentation presents challenges for voters seeking to make informed decisions in the 2024 presidential election.
Several articles noted that October 20, 2024, was also Vice President Kamala Harris's 60th birthday. According to the AP article, when asked what message he had for Harris on her birthday, Trump said, "I would say, 'Happy Birthday, Kamala,'" adding, "I think I'll get her some flowers." The NY Post quoted Trump saying: "Happy birthday, Kamala! She's turning 60. I think I'll get her some flowers. Maybe I'll get her some fries... I'll get her a McDonald's hamburger. Happy birthday, Kamala."
Articles Analyzed: AP News, Time, NY Post, and PBS
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Trump Works At McDonald’s
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