{"id":3031,"date":"2024-10-21T01:17:29","date_gmt":"2024-10-21T01:17:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/trump-thrusts-mcdonalds-into-the-political-arena-in-final-days-of-campaign-cnn-politics\/"},"modified":"2024-10-21T01:17:29","modified_gmt":"2024-10-21T01:17:29","slug":"trump-thrusts-mcdonalds-into-the-political-arena-in-final-days-of-campaign-cnn-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/es_es\/trump-thrusts-mcdonalds-into-the-political-arena-in-final-days-of-campaign-cnn-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump thrusts McDonald\u2019s into the political arena in final days of campaign | CNN Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n


\n <\/span>
\n CNN<\/span>
\n \u00a0\u2014\u00a0
\n <\/cite>\n<\/p>\n

\n Donald Trump<\/a> is pulling one of the most iconic American companies \u2014 McDonald\u2019s \u2014 into the political arena in the final days of his third White House bid.\n <\/p>\n

\n The former president stopped by one of the fast-food chain\u2019s 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 at the restaurant \u2014 which was closed for the event \u2014 telling them he had made it himself and that it was all on him.\n <\/p>\n

\n Manning the fry machine is the same job Vice President Kamala Harris<\/a> has said she held as a young woman, a biographical detail revealed during her first campaign for president<\/a>. 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\u2019s presidential nominee.\n <\/p>\n

\n Trump, whose deep affection for the Golden Arches<\/a> and its offerings is well documented, has meanwhile grown fixated on Harris\u2019 employment there. In interviews and on the campaign trail, he regularly accuses Harris \u2013 without evidence \u2013 of making up the factoid. His visit to the restaurant is his latest attempt to sow doubt about the Democrat\u2019s work history.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI\u2019m looking for a job,\u201d Trump said to the owner of the McDonald\u2019s in\u00a0Feasterville-Trevose on Sunday.\u00a0\u201cAnd I\u2019ve always wanted to work at McDonald\u2019s, but I never did. I\u2019m running against somebody that said she did, but it turned out to be a totally phony story.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n 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\u2019t respond to a request for comment about Trump\u2019s accusation and his upcoming visit to McDonald\u2019s.\n <\/p>\n

\n A campaign official told CNN that Harris worked at a McDonald\u2019s 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.\n <\/p>\n

\n On Drew Barrymore\u2019s talk show earlier this year, Harris told the actor, \u201cI did fries. And then I did the cashier.\u201d And as a presidential candidate in 2019, Harris mentioned her work at the fast-food chain while joining striking McDonald\u2019s workers<\/a> on the picket line.\n <\/p>\n

\n Her time there was repeatedly referenced onstage at this summer\u2019s Democratic National Convention as her allies contrasted her upbringing with Trump\u2019s upper-class roots. Former President Bill Clinton joked that Harris would \u201cbreak my record as the president who has spent the most time at McDonald\u2019s.\u201d Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett asserted that \u201cone candidate worked at McDonald\u2019s,\u201d while \u201cthe other was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cCan you simply picture Donald Trump working at a McDonald\u2019s?\u201d said Harris\u2019 running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. \u201cHe couldn\u2019t run that damn McFlurry machine if it cost him anything.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n 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 \u201cbirther\u201d movement that falsely questioned Barack Obama\u2019s citizenship<\/a> 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<\/a> that Sen. Ted Cruz\u2019s father aided in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. This election cycle, Trump wrongly suggested<\/a> his Republican primary opponent, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, wasn\u2019t a natural-born US citizen and falsely claimed<\/a> that Harris has only lately embraced her Black heritage.\n <\/p>\n

\n Yet, even as he lobbed these accusations, Trump littered his own personal story with exaggerations and fabrications. He coined the phrase \u201ctruthful hyperbole\u201d in his best-selling autobiography \u201cThe Art of the Deal,\u201d an oxymoronic term that nevertheless illustrates his relationship with facts about himself.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt\u2019s an innocent form of exaggeration,\u201d he wrote, \u201cand a very effective form of promotion.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n During a 2007 deposition, lawyers caught Trump lying at least 30 times over two days, mostly over mundane facts about his businesses<\/a> such as the size of his workforce, a payment for speaking fees and the cost of his golf membership.\u00a0He 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.\n <\/p>\n

\n And there are multiple accounts of Trump calling reporters under the alias \u201cJohn Barron,\u201d a supposed executive at his company who once duped a Forbes reporter<\/a> into inflating Trump\u2019s fortune on the magazine\u2019s list of wealthiest people.\n <\/p>\n

\n It\u2019s unclear why Trump has latched on to Harris\u2019 McDonald\u2019s 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\u2019s past shouldn\u2019t be dismissed.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe would say, well, that\u2019s not a big lie. It\u2019s a huge lie,\u201d Trump said, \u201cbecause McDonald\u2019s was part of her whole thing.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Trump also visited a McDonald\u2019s early in his presidential campaign, this one in East Palestine, Ohio, after a train carrying hazardous materials<\/a> derailed there, sparking an environmental and public health crisis. There, he joked to a woman working the register, \u201cI know this menu better than you do. I probably know it better than anybody in here.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The former president has long stated his affinity for fast food. During a 2016 CNN town hall, Trump, a self-described \u201cvery clean person,\u201d attributed his preference for their offerings to the quality control, saying, \u201cYou\u2019re better off going there than someplace you have no idea where the food is coming from.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI think the food is good. I think all of those places, Burger King, McDonald\u2019s, I can live with it,\u201d he added. \u201cThe other night I had Kentucky Fried Chicken. Not the worst thing in the world.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Trump brought that affection into the White House, where he once served Clemson\u2019s national championship football team a smorgasbord of burgers and pizza<\/a>. 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\u2019s order.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cMcDonald\u2019s Big Mac, Filet-O-Fish, fries and a vanilla shake,\u201d Kushner recounted.\n <\/p>\n

\n In an appearance last week on Fox News, Donald Trump Jr. bemoaned that the network in its interview with Harris didn\u2019t ask her which McDonald\u2019s she worked at. He also asserted that his father\u2019s familiarity with the chain\u2019s offerings would surpass the Democratic nominee\u2019s.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI think my father knows the McDonald\u2019s menu much better than Kamala Harris ever did,\u201d Trump Jr. said.\n <\/p>\n

\n This story has been updated with additional developments.<\/em>\n <\/p>\n

\n CNN\u2019s Kristen Holmes, Kate Sullivan and Ebony Davis contributed to this story.\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CNN \u00a0\u2014\u00a0 Donald Trump is pulling one of the most iconic American companies \u2014 McDonald\u2019s \u2014 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\u2019s Pennsylvania franchises during his Sunday swing through the Keystone State, where he swapped his suit<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3032,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2185],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trump-election-news"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/media.cnn.com\/api\/v1\/images\/stellar\/prod\/gettyimages-2163067200.jpg?c=16x9&q=w_800,c_fill","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/es_es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/es_es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/es_es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/es_es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/es_es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/es_es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/es_es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/es_es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/es_es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nine9ja.com\/es_es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}