Donald Trump's long love for McDonald's, explained

Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump's campaign stop at a McDonald's in suburban Philadelphia left viewers confused and stunned. But the photo op at the Golden Arches was anything but accidental: It represents the culmination of a years-long fascination Trump has had with the fast-food chain.

Trump traded in his suit jacket for a yellow-lined apron and dipped baskets of french fries in oil, salted them and scooped them into boxes at a branch in Feasterville-Trevose, Pennsylvania – the well-documented germaphobe expressed his delight at it “never touched the human hand” – and handed bags of groceries to a few select customers through the drive-thru window. The acting at work came as Trump became fixated on Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris' claim that she was briefly employed at McDonald's in the 1980s – something Trump refused to believe was true.

Trump appears determined to shake off any notion that his rival might have a stronger connection to a brand that he has revered and patronized for so long – and that is a powerful symbol of the American working class.

“I love McDonald’s,” Trump said. “I like to see good jobs, and I think it's inappropriate for someone to point out everywhere that she worked at McDonald's.”

In an apparent effort to bolster her confidence in the working class, Harris and her campaign have stated that she worked the cash register, fry station and ice cream machine at a McDonald's in Alameda, California during the summers of 1983 while she was in college. “She's a liar,” Trump repeatedly argued during the campaign, without any evidence (allies pointed to a resume that didn't mention McDonald's). “Birtherism, meet Burgerism,” he summarized New York Times in a recent story about the candidate who has long questioned the biographies of his opponents. As Trump stood at the drive-thru window on Sunday, he said: “I've now worked 15 minutes longer than Kamala.”

The fast food chain has become an odd competitor for the Trump campaign. Speaking to Fox News last week, Trump's son Donald Trump Jr. said his father “knows the McDonald's menu much better than Kamala Harris ever did.” That may actually be true, considering how much he enjoys the food. In early 2023, Trump himself said the same thing to McDonald's employees in East Palestine, Ohio: “I know this menu better than you do,” before purchasing meals for frontline responders following the dangerous chemical spill caused by a train derailment in the area became.

Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, wrote in his 2022 memoir Break history When his father-in-law contracted COVID-19 in 2020, the order from the fast food chain signaled that he was on the road to recovery. “I knew he was feeling better when he ordered one of his favorite meals: a McDonald's Big Mac, Filet-o-Fish, fries and a vanilla shake,” Kushner wrote. That's what former Trump campaign officials Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie said in their 2017 book Let Trump be Trump that the former president's order at McDonald's consisted of “two Big Macs, two Fillet-O-Fish and a chocolate malt shake.”

In 2017, Politico reported that during Trump's 2016 campaign, his former bodyguard and confidant Keith Schiller routinely went to McDonald's near the Marine Air Terminal in Queens while Trump waited in the limousine. “It was often egg McMuffins in the morning, or two quarter-pounders and a large portion of fries later in the day,” Politico reported, citing another unnamed former employee. The report also stated that Schiller would be holding fast food runs on New York Avenue in Washington D.C. if “the White House kitchen staff didn't have the satisfaction of a quarter pounder with cheese (no pickles, extra ketchup) and a deep fried apple pie.” could achieve.”

In October 2023, several large bags of McDonald's were dragged into court during Trump's fraud trial in Manhattan. And in 2019, Trump more than once controversially provided McDonald's meals to top college athletes visiting the White House. In 2002, the billionaire even appeared in an ad for McDonald's dollar menu.

There are several seemingly related explanations for why Trump loves McDonald's — and fast food in general — so much. In his 2018 book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White HouseAuthor Michael Wolff said Trump “has long been afraid of being poisoned.” As he ate at McDonald's, Wolff echoed Trump's thoughts: “Nobody knew he was coming and the food was certainly pre-prepared.”

Trump, in turn, based his taste on the standards of food preparation. “I am a very clean person. I like cleanliness and I think it's better to go there than to go somewhere where you have no idea where the food comes from. It’s a certain standard,” Trump told CNN in a 2016 town hall meeting. “One bad hamburger can destroy McDonald’s.”