2024-10-21 22:45:04
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 McDonald’s. I like jobs. I like to see good jobs and I think it’s inappropriate when someone puts down that they worked at McDonald’s … She [Harris] never worked at McDonald’s.
“Should I give them extra salt?” Trump asked a McDonald’s worker while salting fries.
A spokesperson for the Harris-Walz campaign said in a statement to Rolling Stone: “Today, Donald Trump showed exactly what we would see in a second Trump term: exploiting working people for his own personal gain. 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. Vice President Harris, on the other hand, has a record of standing up for workers and taking on bad actors who rip people off, and she’ll do the same as president.”
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 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.”
When CBS News reporter Olivia Rinaldi asked Trump at the drive-thru whether he supports raising the minimum wage for workers like those employed by McDonald’s, the former president did not give an answer, only saying, “Well, I think this. These people work hard. They’re great. And I just saw something … a process that’s beautiful.” During the 2020 campaign, Trump vocally opposed raising the minimum wage.
The owner-operator of the Feasterville, Pennsylvania, McDonald’s that Trump visited issued a statement: “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 one in eight Americans have had: a job at McDonald’s.”
The restaurant was not open at the time of Trump’s visit. A sign on the store said it would be closed Sunday “until 4 p.m. to accommodate a visit at the request of former President Trump and his campaign.”
This story has been updated to include statements from the Harris-Walz campaign and from Feasterville, Pennsylvania, McDonald’s owner-operator Derek Giacomantonio.
