Trump, slinging fries and smearing Harris, takes turn behind a McDonald’s counter

FEASTERVILLE, Pa. — Donald Trump walked into one of his favorite restaurants Sunday and declared he was “looking for a job.”

He certainly is, though not the one that he occupied during the photo op that followed. Trump’s stop at the McDonald’s in suburban Philadelphia, which was closed to the public during his visit and where he briefly worked the fryer and handed bags of food to preselected drive-thru customers, was a play meant to attack his opponent and give the billionaire candidate some credibility with the working-class voters he needs to win back the White House.

The visit married his two fixations: his well-documented affection for fast food — McDonald’s in particular — and a more recent pattern of accusing Vice President Kamala Harris without evidence of lying about a summer job working at McDonald’s.

Harris’ campaign said she worked at a McDonald’s in Alameda, California, in 1983 during the summer after her freshman year at Howard University. A friend of Harris’ recently backed up that account, telling The New York Times that the vice president’s mother, who died in 2009, had told her about the summer job years ago. McDonald’s representatives have ignored media requests for information.

Yet Trump, known for wildly speculating about the backgrounds of his political opponents without proof, repeated the claim as he addressed reporters from a drive-thru window in Feasterville, Pennsylvania.

Trump, the son of a wealthy real estate developer, told reporters he long dreamed of working at the golden arches and he listened attentively as an employee explained his fryer technique.

Trump, wearing shirt sleeves and an apron, nodded as he was told how to avoid grease burns, how to add salt and how to keep from touching french fries as he slid them into a glossy red container. “I’ve had many of those,” he joked as he watched.

When it was his turn, Trump recited some of the instructions he’d been given as he proceeded. And the former president, who has said he values the consistency, efficiency and cleanliness standards of national fast-food chains, seemed reassured by the process. “These are definitely fresh,” he said approvingly at one point. “Never touches the human hand,” he said admiringly later.

Soon after, he dumped a basket of newly fried fries into a metal bin. “Grab one while it’s oily hot,” Trump joked to an aide. “See if you can touch that sucker.”

When it was time to bag the order, he asked a woman at the drive-thru what they did when a customer wanted more salt. “I love salt,” he said, as he shook some onto golden potatoes. Then, after spilling some, he paused to throw some over his shoulder in a nod to superstition, a seconds-long gesture that would have most likely been unappreciated by efficiency-loving managers had Trump been any other employee.

Trump dodged when asked if he thought the minimum wage should be raised. “Well I think this: These people work hard. They’re great. And I just saw something, a process, that’s beautiful,” he said.

The Harris campaign blasted Trump’s McDonald’s visit. “Today, Donald Trump showed exactly what we would see in a second Trump term: exploiting working people for his own personal gain,” said Joseph Costello, a campaign spokesperson. “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.”

Derek Giacomantonio, a franchisee who owns eight McDonald’s in the Philadelphia region including the one Trump visited, said in a statement that he welcomed the former president’s visit as an opportunity to put the spotlight on franchise businesses and the jobs they provide.

The McDonald’s trip was the start of a daylong schedule of campaign events in Pennsylvania. Later, Trump took part in a town hall in Lancaster, in the central part of the state.

In front of a packed crowd at the Lancaster County Convention Center, Trump gave winding answers to soft questions from five audience members and the event’s moderator, former ESPN anchor Sage Steele. He rambled through campaign talking points — some of them at times unrelated to what he was asked — as he made exaggerated and false claims about crime and immigration, revived promises to lift domestic oil and gas production and attacked Harris’ intelligence.

With the Harris campaign recently questioning Trump’s refusal to release a detailed medical report, Trump pointed to a recent opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal that said he had “no sign” of mental decline. “I have no cognitive — she may have a cognitive problem,” he said.

Then, as Trump again called for cognitive tests for presidential candidates — a push he began making to criticize President Joe Biden — the former president, who is 78, interjected, “And I’m not 80, I’m not that close to 80.”

Trump also told reporters crowding the drive-thru window in Feasterville that he would travel to Pittsburgh for a Steelers game against the New York Jets. Trump, a New York native standing in Philadelphia Eagles territory, did not say which team he might be rooting for.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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