Trump says he will ‘do everything’ at McDonald’s during Pennsylvania visit

FRY COOK TRAINEE

Filip Timotija
Sat, October 19, 2024 

Trump says he will ‘do everything’ at McDonald’s during Pennsylvania visit

Former President Trump quipped in a recent interview that he will “do everything” at a McDonald’s during his visit to battleground Pennsylvania over the weekend.

“A friend of mine owns a McDonald’s someplace,” Trump said Friday during his in-person interview with “Fox & Friends.”

“Oh, I’m going. I’m going to do everything,” he added.


Trump claimed during the interview, and on the campaign trail, that his Democratic rival, Vice President Harris, did not work at the popular food chain. The comments came after the Harris campaign issued an ad over the summer highlighting her upbringing and outlined her time working at McDonald’s.

“I’m going because she lied,” Trump said Friday.

“You don’t think she ever worked in McDonald’s?” he was pressed by “Fox & Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade.

“I know she didn’t. We checked it out,” the former president said. “They said she never worked here. She even picked the store. We went to the manager. The manager’s been there forever. ‘You remember her. No, she never worked here.’”

Harris has repeatedly said that she has worked at the fast-food chain during her time as an undergraduate student.

“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 vice president said last month during an interview with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle. “I worked there as a student.”

“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,” she added at the time.

The former president will visit the McDonald’s on Street Road in Lower Southampton Township, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to The Hill.

Trump’s visit to the golden arches comes as the two party nominees make their way through the key battleground states. With less than three weeks left until the election, Trump will rally voters Saturday evening in Latrobe, Pa. — about an hour outside of Pittsburgh.

President Biden won the Keystone State by just more than 1 percentage point in 2020, raking in the state’s 19 Electoral College votes.

The Hill/Decision Desk HQ’s aggregate of polls shows Harris ahead in Pennsylvania by less than half a point — with 48.7 percent support to Trump’s 48.3 percent.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. 

Trump cooks fries at McDonald's as he attempts to cast doubt on Harris' earlier employment at the chain

John L. Dorman,Lauren Edmonds
Sun, October 20, 2024


Donald Trump visited a McDonald's in a key Pennsylvania county on Sunday.


Kamala Harris said she once worked at a McDonald's, which is a key part of her biography.


Trump has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that Harris did not work at McDonald's.

Former President Donald Trump has long been known for his love of the Golden Arches.

After landing at the Philadelphia International Airport on Sunday, Trump and his team traveled to a McDonald's franchise in Feasterville-Trevose, Pennsylvania, where he donned an official employee apron and began handing out orders to customers waiting in the drive-thru line. He also helped cook the restaurant's signature fries.

Trump's visit, however, had little to do with his fondness for the food.

For weeks, Trump has attempted to sow doubt — without providing evidence — that Vice President Kamala Harris ever worked at McDonald's, which has become a key part of her biography.

Harris said she worked the cash register and made fries during the summer of 1983. At the time, Harris was an undergraduate at Howard University, and her campaign says she worked at a McDonald's in Alameda, California, a city in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The former president said in Detroit on Friday that Harris "lied about working at McDonald's."

Trump senior advisor Jason Miller also cast doubt on Harris' McDonald's employment on Saturday, telling reporters that Trump was going to the restaurant "so that one candidate in this race could have actually worked at McDonald's."

Trump needled Harris again on Sunday. While at the drive-thru window, he said he worked at McDonald's for "15 minutes more than Kamala" and once again accused her of never having worked at the chain.

Harris has firmly pushed back against Trump's accusation.

The Harris campaign has promoted the vice president's experience at McDonald's as a part of a middle-class upbringing that might resonate with millions of Americans — and that separates her from the affluent life led by Trump.

"When Trump feels desperate, all he knows how to do is lie," Harris campaign spokesman Ian Sams told The New York Times. "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."

Harris and Trump remain locked in a historically tight race. Trump has sought to promote his handling of the economy, an issue he used to his advantage when President Joe Biden was the presumptive Democratic nominee.

But when Biden exited the race in July, and Harris became the nominee, she quickly went to battle with Trump on the economy and succeeded in eroding his once huge advantage on the issue in key swing states.

McDonald's, which is headquartered in Chicago, is the world's largest fast-food chain, with more than 40,000 locations. The chain plans to have 50,000 locations around the globe by the end of 2027, according to its company website.

McDonald's is also a major employer. In Pennsylvania alone, the company says its franchises employ over 25,000 people. In a statement provided to Business Insider on Sunday, the owner of the McDonald's location that Trump visited said he was honored to "showcase" the restaurant chain.

"As a small, independent business owner, it is a fundamental value of my organization that we proudly open our doors to everyone who visits the Feasterville community. That's why I accepted former President Trump's request to observe the transformative working experience that 1 in 8 Americans have had: a job at McDonald's," Derek Giacomantonio said.

"As a former crew member, I can attest this job is more than burgers and fries, but a meaningful pathway to opportunity."

Trump's appetite for McDonald's — and other fast food chains — has been well documented.

After winning the requisite number of GOP delegates needed to secure the party's 2016 presidential nomination, Trump was photographed eating a McDonald's Big Mac on his private jet.

And in January 2019, Trump hosted the college championship-winning Clemson University football team at the White House, where he ordered an assortment of fast-food staples from McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, and Domino's Pizza for the players.

Business Insider reached out to the Trump and Harris campaigns for comment.

 Business Insider


Donald Trump visits Pennsylvania McDonald's, alleges without evidence Kamala Harris lied about college work

JD Mullane, Bucks County Courier Times
Sun, October 20, 2024 

Former President Donald Trump showed up for his quick shift at McDonald's in Feasterville, Pennsylvania, on Sunday − and doubled down on accusations he's made without evidence that Vice President Kamala Harris lied about working at the fast food chain.

“I’ve now worked at McDonald’s 15 minutes longer than Kamala Harris,” Trump said, as reporters shouted questions while he worked the window at the restaurant in his apron.

With just over two weeks to Election Day, and Pennsylvania still hotly contested as possibly the swing state needed to capture the White House, Trump came to the pivotal Bucks County to woo undecided voters in hopes of securing the state's critical 19 electoral votes.

Trump's visit was prompted by a claim by the vice president, who has said she had worked at a McDonald’s in the 1980s. Trump said he doesn’t believe it, and agreed to “work the fries” at a McDonald’s as a campaign stop. The fast food mainstay has not confirmed whether the vice president was employed by the chain.

Trump, the Republican, and Harris, the Democrat, are locked in a tight race in Pennsylvania. Both are barnstorming the state in the waning days of the campaign ahead of Nov. 5, and while Pennsylvania voters are already returning mail-in ballots.

The event, arguably the most unique campaign stop in Bucks County in decades, brought out crowds, tight security and had the national media watching.

Trump handed McDonald's McNuggets, burgers and fries in signature brand brown bags to customers, all pre-selected and pre-screened, in maybe a half-dozen cars. “What a beautiful family,” he said to the first car full.

Trump also wished Harris a happy birthday. The vice president turned 60 on Sunday.

Donald Trump works the drive-through at McDonald’s on Street Road in Feasterville On Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024.

Trump could be seen on national news networks wearing an apron and learning how to make fries from an employee. He also talked about Sunday's Steelers game and asked about how to "shake" the grease off the fries, according to multiple reports. Trump is expected to attend the Steelers' game on Sunday against the Jets.


Donald Trump works the drive-through at McDonald’s on Street Road in Feasterville
Supporters of Trump and Harris come out to McDonald's campaign stop

The unconventional campaign stop brought out thousands of supporters of the former president and a smaller group of Harris supporters, who carried signs and stood nearby the McDonald's.

As with other Trump events, it was a party atmosphere. The weather was sunny and warm, and signs and flags were everywhere, including “Cats for Trump.”

It was also loud, with chants of “USA, USA” amid breaks for music Trump often plays at rallies, including “God Bless the USA” and the Village People’s “YMCA.” Supporters danced and bounced. Passing cars rigged with freight train horns blasted the crowd, which whooped and cheered.

Donald Trump works the drive-through at McDonald’s on Street Road in Feasterville.

At least three dozen Kamala Harris supporters stages a protest against the appearance of former President Donald Trump at a Feasterville McDonald's restaurant on Sunday Oct. 20, 2024

John and Kate Devlin of Huntington Valley said they came to the campaign stop just to get a glimpse of Trump. “It’s really a chance for our kids to see history,” Kate Devlin said.

John Devlin said he moved his barber shop from Northeast Philadelphia to Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, because of crime. “There was a shooting in front of my shop. This country needs better policing on crime,” he said.

Families were everywhere Sunday, along with small business owners. But the crowd was mostly filled working people who want the economy fixed. “I believe Donald Trump holds the future for us,” said Luba Kaun, of Holland. She was with her son, Donald Julian, 3.

“He has the same name — Donald J,” she said.

At the McDonald's, customers chosen to be served by Trump waited in line at the drive thru well before the former president arrived Sunday afternoon. The first car, a black Jeep Wrangler driven by a man who identified himself as Jim from Bucks County, said his order would be fries and McNuggets.

Security was tight, with sniper teams on top of the McDonald's and atop Guy’s Bicycles next door. Secret Service agents and K-9 dogs patrolled, and local police wore military green SWAT gear.

Former President Donald Trump dons an apron at the McDonald’s on Street Road in Feasterville on Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024.
Why was Donald Trump at a McDonald's in Pennsylvania today?

In interviews since at least 2019, Harris has said she worked at a McDonald's while in college in the 1980s.

"I did fries and then I did the cashier," she told an interviewer earlier this year. Asked what she'd order at McDonald's at a drive-through, she said, "Probably the Quarter Pounder with cheese and fries," she said.

Trump has for months claimed without evidence that Harris did not work at the fast food establishment.

Buh-bye birtherism Trump finally says Obama born in U.S., blames Clinton for controversy

McDonald's has stayed out of it.

Jim Worthington, a Trump supporter and owner of the Newtown Athletic Club, said he arranged the McDonald’s visit through franchise owner and friend Derek Giacomantonio, who declined to speak, and a spokesman said all communication had to be approved by corporate offices in Chicago.

However, a McDonald's executive on site declined to answer when a reporter for the Bucks County Courier Times, part of the USA TODAY Network, asked him if Harris had ever worked for the company. In a statement distributed to the press on Sunday, McDonald’s said, “As a brand, McDonald's does not endorse candidates for elected office and that remains true in this race for the next President. We are not red or blue — we are golden.”

Trump and Harris are in a battle for Pennsylvania in the presidential race, which could turn on white working-class voters, people who tend to be familiar with minimum or lower-paying wage jobs such as McDonald's.
A pivotal part of Pennsylvania

Trump's Sunday's appearance in Bucks County was the second in the Philadelphia area since last Monday.

In Oaks, in Montgomery County, Trump stopped taking questions at a town hall event after a pair of medical emergencies in the crowd, instead dancing and playing music for 39 minutes as supporters trickled out.

Harris held an event in Washington Crossing Historic Park in Bucks on Thursday urging "country over party," appearing with more than 100 Republicans.

Bucks County is the narrowest of the swing counties in southeastern Pennsylvania and, apart from Luzerne County, has the smallest divide between Republicans and Democrats as a percent of total voters. Pennsylvania is critical to the 2024 election with its 19 electoral votes.

Out of 486,740 voters in Bucks County, Republicans make up about 41.6% of voters while Democrats make up about 41% of voters. Democrats lost their voter advantage over the GOP for the first time in at least a decade in July. Luzerne County has Republicans leading by just 0.46%.

While Trump hasn’t managed to win Bucks County in either of the last two presidential elections – Clinton took the county 48.7% to 47.6% and Biden won with a four-point lead at 51% of the vote – he does have a strong following of supporters.

JD Mullane can be reached at jmullane@couriertimes.com.

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Trump visits PA McDonald's, alleges Harris lied about college work





Trump Makes Fries at McDonald’s in Bizarre Attempt to Troll Harris
Peter Wade
Sun, October 20, 2024 at 12:29 PM MDT·2 min read
105




Donald Trump is spending part of his Sunday afternoon behind the counter at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s. The former president, who has frequently said he loves the chain’s food, donned an apron to work the fry machine and hand food to customers at the drive thru. It’s an attempt to bring attention to his unfounded allegations that his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, did not work there during college.

When asked why he wanted to come to the fast food restaurant, Trump responded, “I like McDonalds. I like jobs. I like to see good jobs and I think it’s inappropriate when someone puts down that they worked at McDonalds… She [Harris] never worked at McDonalds.”

“Should I give them extra salt?” Trump asked a McDonald’s worker while salting fries.

Rolling Stone has reached out to the Harris campaign for comment. A campaign official told CNN that she worked at a McDonald’s in Alameda, California, in the summer of 1983 while a student at Howard University, working the register as well as the fry and ice cream machines.

“I did fries. And then I did the cashier,” Harris said on Drew Barrymore’s talk show in April.

Trump, who recently complained that he “used to hate to pay overtime” to his employees, has proposed a policies that would end taxes on overtime and tips. Harris has proposed a similar no tax on tips policy for hospitality and service industry workers.

“I know a lot about overtime. I hated to give overtime, I hated it. I’d get other people—I shouldn’t say this, but I’d get other people in. I wouldn’t pay,” Trump said at a Pennsylvania rally last month, basically confessing to committing wage theft.

Reacting to Trump’s remarks at the time, the Harris campaign said in a statement to The Daily Beast, “Donald Trump is finally owning up to it: He’s built an entire career on screwing over workers. It’s exactly what he did in the White House — trying to rip away tips and overtime pay for millions of workers — and exactly what he plans to do in a second term.”

 Rolling Stone


Trump thrusts McDonald’s into the political arena in final days of campaign

Steve Contorno, CNN
Sun, October 20, 2024 

Trump thrusts McDonald’s into the political arena in final days of campaign


Donald Trump is pulling one of the most iconic American companies – McDonald’s – into the political arena in the final days of his third White House bid.

The former president stopped by one of the fast-food chain’s Pennsylvania franchises during his Sunday swing through the Keystone State, where he swapped his suit jacket for an apron to work as a fry attendant. He later handed customers food through the drive-thru window, telling them he had made it himself and that it was all on him.

Manning the fry machine is the same job Vice President Kamala Harris has said she held as a young woman, a biographical detail revealed during her first campaign for president. It has since become a centerpiece of the middle-class origin story she has made key to her pitch to voters as the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee.

Trump, whose deep affection for the Golden Arches and its offerings is well documented, has meanwhile grown fixated on Harris’ employment there. In interviews and on the campaign trail, he regularly accuses Harris – without evidence – of making up the factoid. His visit to the restaurant is his latest attempt to sow doubt about the Democrat’s work history.

“I’m looking for a job,” Trump said to the owner of the McDonald’s in Feasterville-Trevose on Sunday. “And I’ve always wanted to work at McDonald’s, but I never did. I’m running against somebody that said she did, but it turned out to be a totally phony story.”

Harris has largely ignored Trump, as well as calls from his supporters and inquiries from conservative news outlets to provide proof of her time there. Her campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment about Trump’s accusation and his upcoming visit to McDonald’s.

A campaign official told CNN that Harris worked at a McDonald’s in Alameda, California, during the summer of 1983 when she was still a student at Howard University in Washington. She worked the register and manned the fry and ice cream machines, according to the official.

On Drew Barrymore’s talk show earlier this year, Harris told the actor, “I did fries. And then I did the cashier.” And as a presidential candidate in 2019, Harris mentioned her work at the fast-food chain while joining striking McDonald’s workers on the picket line.

Her time there was repeatedly referenced onstage at this summer’s Democratic National Convention as her allies contrasted her upbringing with Trump’s upper-class roots. Former President Bill Clinton joked that Harris would “break my record as the president who has spent the most time at McDonald’s.” Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett asserted that “one candidate worked at McDonald’s,” while “the other was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.”

“Can you simply picture Donald Trump working at a McDonald’s?” said Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. “He couldn’t run that damn McFlurry machine if it cost him anything.”

Trump over the years has repeatedly questioned the biographies of his rivals, often without merit. He was one of the loudest voices in the debunked “birther” movement that falsely questioned Barack Obama’s citizenship and eligibility for the White House, eventually leading the Hawaiian-born president to release his long-form birth certificate. During the 2016 Republican primary, Trump pushed an unfounded conspiracy theory that Sen. Ted Cruz’s father aided in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. This election cycle, Trump wrongly suggested his Republican primary opponent, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, wasn’t a natural-born US citizen and falsely claimed that Harris has only lately embraced her Black heritage.

Yet, even as he lobbed these accusations, Trump littered his own personal story with exaggerations and fabrications. He coined the phrase “truthful hyperbole” in his best-selling autobiography “The Art of the Deal,” an oxymoronic term that nevertheless illustrates his relationship with facts about himself.

“It’s an innocent form of exaggeration,” he wrote, “and a very effective form of promotion.”

During a 2007 deposition, lawyers caught Trump lying at least 30 times over two days, mostly over mundane facts about his businesses such as the size of his workforce, a payment for speaking fees and the cost of his golf membership. He also once claimed that he stood on the rubble at ground zero after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and that he paid his workers to clear away the debris, neither of which is backed by public record.

And there are multiple accounts of Trump calling reporters under the alias “John Barron,” a supposed executive at his company who once duped a Forbes reporter into inflating Trump’s fortune on the magazine’s list of wealthiest people.

It’s unclear why Trump has latched on to Harris’ McDonald’s employment or why a visit there was warranted during one of his few remaining weekends before Election Day. But in recent interviews, Trump has suggested that a small detail about his rival’s past shouldn’t be dismissed.

“We would say, well, that’s not a big lie. It’s a huge lie,” Trump said, “because McDonald’s was part of her whole thing.”

Trump also visited a McDonald’s early in his presidential campaign, this one in East Palestine, Ohio, after a train carrying hazardous materials derailed there, sparking an environmental and public health crisis. There, he joked to a woman working the register, “I know this menu better than you do. I probably know it better than anybody in here.”

The former president has long stated his affinity for fast food. During a 2016 CNN town hall, Trump, a self-described “very clean person,” attributed his preference for their offerings to the quality control, saying, “You’re better off going there than someplace you have no idea where the food is coming from.”

“I think the food is good. I think all of those places, Burger King, McDonald’s, I can live with it,” he added. “The other night I had Kentucky Fried Chicken. Not the worst thing in the world.”

Trump brought that affection into the White House, where he once served Clemson’s national championship football team a smorgasbord of burgers and pizza. His son-in-law Jared Kushner quipped in his autobiography that he knew Trump had turned the corner in his battle with the coronavirus when he requested his favorite McDonald’s order.

“McDonald’s Big Mac, Filet-O-Fish, fries and a vanilla shake,” Kushner recounted.

In an appearance last week on Fox News, Donald Trump Jr. bemoaned that the network in its interview with Harris didn’t ask her which McDonald’s she worked at. He also asserted that his father’s familiarity with the chain’s offerings would surpass the Democratic nominee’s.

“I think my father knows the McDonald’s menu much better than Kamala Harris ever did,” Trump Jr. said.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

CNN’s Kristen Holmes, Kate Sullivan and Ebony Davis contributed to this story.

Donald Trump Does Time Working at a McDonald’s to Troll Kamala Harris | Video
Stephanie Kaloi
Sun, October 20, 2024 

Donald Trump stopped by a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania Sunday to work the fryer, give orders at the drive-thru and neg Kamala Harris about her time working at the fast food chain years ago.

Trump appeared to swing by the french fry station first, where he pulled a basket of fries out of oil and positioned it so the fries could be salted.

The Republican presidential nominee also spent time at the drive-thru window, where he greeted customers, passed out their orders and spoke about his campaign to attending media.

“It’s a great franchise, it’s a great company, and they’ve been very, very nice,” Trump said.

“And, you know, if you look at really what’s happening, look right over there, look at how happy everybody is,” he continued. “They’re happy because they want hope. They need hope. And that’s what we’re doing.”

Watch highlights below:

Trump also alluded to his previous assertions that Harris never actually worked at McDonald’s when she was young. “Now I have worked at McDonald’s,” he added. “I’ve now worked for 15 minutes more than Kamala. She never worked here.”

In another clip from the visit, Trump is seen telling reporters, “I could do this all day.” He added, “I wouldn’t mind this job. I like this job, I think I might come back and do it again.”

Trump was then greeted by two customers who appeared happy to see him. “Thank you, Mr. President,” an unidentified man told him. “You made it possible for ordinary people like us to meet you. Thank you so much for everything you are doing. We pray for you.” A woman traveling with the man added, “Thank you for taking a bullet for us.”

Trump also told reporters he will accept the results of the election next month “if it’s a fair election … We’re leading in all the polls now, we’re leading in every swing state.”

After he was asked about raising minimum wage, Trump offered, “Well I think this. These people work hard. They’re great. And I just saw something … a process that’s beautiful.”

You can watch a 13-minute video from Trump’s McDonald’s visit in the video below.

The post Donald Trump Does Time Working at a McDonald’s to Troll Kamala Harris | Video appeared first on TheWrap.