Presidential candidate Donald Trump visited a family-owned McDonalds in Pennsylvania for a photo op on Oct. 20. The Feasterville, PA location was closed to the public for the event while Trump’s supporters gathered on the streets nearby.
Trump worked the drive-thru for approximately 30 minutes, serving fries to pre-screened customers and his campaign team. Customers were subjected to security measures due to Trump’s prior assassination attempts.
This visit came about to mock Kamala Harris’ prior experience working at a McDonalds during the summer of 1983, where she worked the front of the store to pay her tuition at Howard University.
Trump does not believe that Harris spent time working at McDonalds. “It was a big part of her resume that she worked at McDonald’s — how tough a job it was,” Trump stated on Sunday. “She … made the french fries, and she talked about the heat: ‘It was so tough.’ She’s never worked at McDonald’s.” Trump has made these claims without any evidence that Harris is lying. McDonalds stated that they no longer keep records from the 1980s, but shared the popular statistic that one in eight Americans work at a McDonalds sometime in their life.
Trump received a lot of criticism for his visit from Democrats. “Donald Trump, a 78-year-old, who’s never earned a real paycheck in his life, put on a show, playing dress up to act like he’s one of us,” Shawn Fain, head of the United Auto Workers, said at a Harris campaign event Sunday.
“When Trump feels desperate, all he knows how to do is lie,” Sams said. “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,” said Harris’ spokesperson Ian Sams in a statement.
The Feasterville, PA McDonald’s owner Derek Giacomantonio stated that he was happy to host the photo op at his store because “it is a fundamental value of my organization that we proudly open our doors to everyone who visits the Feasterville community.” However, Giacomantonio also expressed that they are not explicitly endorsing a certain candidate in the presidential election.
