Donald Trump is obsessively claiming that Kamala Harris never worked at McDonald’s. He is saying it over and over and over again at his rallies. “It was a lie,” Trump told a rally in Mint Hill, North Carolina. “It was a fake story. It was a fake story; the press now refuses to write it because it’s so, you know, this is a simple one. She said she worked at McDonald’s and she didn’t. It was a lie. She never worked at McDonald’s over the hot French fries.”
Trump thinks that this time, he’s got her. First, she’s not really Black, now Vice President Kamala Harris has “lied” about working part time at an outlet of the fast-food chain one summer when she attended Howard University.
Trump demands to know why this isn’t a bigger story. After one rally, he went onto his social media platform and charged, “NEVER WORKED AT McDONALD’S — A TOTAL LIE. LAMESTREAM MEDEA (sic) REFUSES TO REPORT THIS FACT.” That’s a direct quote.
Trump’s repeated charge is so absurd that in an interview on MSNBC on Wednesday, Stephanie Ruhle asked the Vice President the question of the hour: “At any point in your life have you served two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, on a sesame seed bun working at a McDonald’s?”
“I have,” Harris answered. “Part of the reason I even talk about having worked at McDonald’s is because there are people who work at McDonald’s in our country who are trying to raise a family and pay rent on that. And I think part of the difference between me and my opponent includes our perspective on the needs of the American people, and what our responsibility then is to meet those needs.”
According to Steve Benen at MaddowBlog, Trump has repeated his charge in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Washington, D.C. In California, at one of his "press conferences" where he doesn’t take questions from the press, Trump continued to attack Harris for her claim that she worked at McDonalds. In North Carolina, Trump complained that in her interview with Vice President Harris, Oprah Winfrey had not challenged her about whether she was telling the truth about working for McDonalds.
With 39 days left before the election in November, at a time when the Middle East is blowing up, Russia is drawing a brand new red line threatening to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine, and the state of Texas is going to the Supreme Court to make sure it can continue to deny women abortions in emergency rooms when their pregnancies are in life-threatening distress, Trump has found the issue he wants to stake his campaign on: Kamala Harris’ work history at McDonalds.
I know Trump’s MAGA base will follow him down any rabbit hole he wants to lead them into, but someone should take his temperature and help him to a place where he can lie down. Donald Trump needs help.
Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. He has covered Watergate, the Stonewall riots, and wars in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels. You can subscribe to his daily columns at luciantruscott.substack.com and follow him on Twitter @LucianKTruscott and on Facebook at Lucian K. Truscott IV.
