FEASTERVILLE-TREVOSE, Pa. — FEASTERVILLE-TREVOSE, Pa. (AP) — Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump manned the fry station at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania on Sunday earlier than staging an impromptu information convention, answering questions by means of the drive-thru window.
As reporters and aides watched, an worker confirmed Trump find out how to dunk baskets of fries in oil, salt the fries and put them into containers utilizing a scoop. Trump, a well known fan of quick meals and a infamous germophobe, expressed amazement that he did not have to the touch the fries together with his fingers.
“It requires nice experience, truly, to do it proper and to do it quick,” Trump mentioned with a smile, placing away his swimsuit jacket and sporting an apron over his shirt and tie.
The go to got here as he is tried to counter Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’ accounts on the marketing campaign of working on the fast-food chain whereas in faculty, an expertise that Trump has claimed — with out providing proof — by no means occurred.
A big crowd lined the road exterior the restaurant in Feasterville-Trevose, which is a part of Bucks County, a key swing voter space north of Philadelphia. The restaurant itself was closed to the general public for Trump’s go to. The previous president later attended a night city corridor in Lancaster and the Pittsburgh Steelers house recreation towards the New York Jets.
After serving luggage of takeout to individuals within the drive-thru lane, Trump leaned out of the window, nonetheless sporting the apron, to take questions from the media staged exterior. The previous president, who has consistently promoted falsehoods about his 2020 election loss, mentioned he would respect the outcomes of subsequent month’s vote “if it is a honest election.”
He joked about getting one reporter ice cream and when one other requested what message he had for Harris on her sixtieth birthday on Sunday, Trump mentioned, “I’d say, ‘Completely satisfied Birthday, Kamala,’” including, “I feel I’ll get her some flowers.”
Trump didn’t instantly reply a query of whether or not he would possibly help elevated minimal wages after seeing McDonald’s staff in motion however mentioned, “These individuals work laborious. They’re nice.”
He added that “I simply noticed one thing … a course of that’s lovely.”
When aides lastly urged him to wrap issues up so he may hit the highway to his subsequent occasion, Trump supplied, “Wasn’t {that a} unusual place to do a information convention?”
Trump has fixated in latest weeks on the summer time job Harris mentioned she held in faculty, working the money register and making fries at McDonald’s whereas in faculty. Trump says the vice chairman has “lied about working” there, however not supplied proof for claiming that.
Representatives for McDonald’s didn’t reply to a message about whether or not the corporate had employment data for one in every of its eating places 40 years in the past. However Harris spokesman Joseph Costello mentioned the previous president’s McDonald’s go to “confirmed precisely what we’d see in a second Trump time period: exploiting working individuals for his personal private achieve.”
“Trump doesn’t perceive what it’s prefer to work for a residing, regardless of what number of staged picture ops he does, and his total second time period plan is to offer himself, his rich buddies, and big companies one other large tax lower,” Costello mentioned in an announcement.
In an interview final month on MSNBC, the vice chairman pushed again on Trump’s claims, saying she did work on the fast-food chain 4 many years in the past when she was in faculty.
“A part of the explanation I even discuss having labored at McDonald’s is as a result of there are individuals who work at McDonald’s in our nation who’re attempting to boost a household,” she mentioned. “I labored there as a pupil.”
Harris additionally mentioned: “I feel a part of the distinction between me and my opponent contains our perspective on the wants of the American individuals and what our accountability, then, is to satisfy these wants.”
Trump has lengthy unfold groundless claims about his opponents based mostly on their private historical past, significantly ladies and racial minorities.
Earlier than he ran for president, Trump was a number one voice of the “birther” conspiracy that baselessly claimed President Barack Obama was from Africa, was not an American citizen and subsequently was ineligible to be president. Trump used it to boost his personal political profile, demanding to see Obama’s delivery certificates and 5 years after Obama did so, Trump lastly admitted that Obama was born in the US.
Throughout his first run for president, Trump repeated a tabloid’s claims that Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s father, who was born in Cuba, had hyperlinks to President John F. Kennedy’s murderer, Lee Harvey Oswald. Cruz and Trump competed for the celebration’s 2016 nomination.
In January of this yr, when Trump was dealing with Nikki Haley, his former U.N. ambassador, within the Republican major, he shared on his social media community a submit with false claims that Haley’s mother and father weren’t residents when she was born, subsequently making her ineligible to be president.
Haley is the South Carolina-born daughter of Indian immigrants, making her robotically a native-born citizen and assembly the constitutional requirement to run for president.
And Trump has continued to advertise baseless claims throughout this marketing campaign. Trump mentioned throughout his presidential debate with Harris that immigrants who had settled in Springfield, Ohio, have been consuming residents’ pets — a declare he recommended in an interview Saturday was nonetheless true regardless that he may present no affirmation.
“It’s a basic worth of my group that we proudly open our doorways to everybody who visits the Feasterville neighborhood,” the McDonald’s location’s proprietor, Derek Giacomantonio, mentioned in an announcement. “That’s why I accepted former President Trump’s request to watch the transformative working expertise that 1 in 8 People have had: a job at McDonald’s.”
Police closed the busy streets across the McDonald’s throughout Trump’s go to. Authorities cordoned off the restaurant as a crowd a pair blocks lengthy gathered, generally 10- to 15-deep, throughout the road straining to catch a glimpse of Trump. Horns honked and music blared as Trump supporters waved flags, held indicators and took footage.
John Waters, of close by Fairless Hills, had by no means been to a Trump rally and had hoped to see the previous president so near his home after lacking different close by rallies.
“After I drove up, all of the automobiles, unbelievable, I used to be like, ‘He’s right here’s, he’s coming, he’s undoubtedly coming with this all site visitors,’” Waters mentioned.
Trump is very a fan of McDonald’s Large Macs and Filet-o-Fish sandwiches. He’s talked usually about how he trusts huge chains greater than smaller eating places since they’ve huge reputations to take care of, and the previous president’s employees usually decide up McDonald’s and serve it on his airplane.
Jim Worthington, a Trump supporter and fundraiser who owns a close-by athletic complicated and chaired Pennsylvania’s delegation to the Republican Nationwide Conference, mentioned he organized Trump’s go to to the domestically owned McDonald’s franchise.
The marketing campaign contacted him searching for a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania and Worthington began searching for one. He bought in contact with Giacomantonio by means of a pal and talked the franchise proprietor by means of some preliminary nervousness.
Giacomantonio wanted to know that McDonald’s company workplaces could be OK with it, first. Second, he was involved that being seen as a Trump supporter would harm his enterprise or a spark boycott, Worthington mentioned.
“He actually had considerations, however I eased his thoughts, and talked to him about the advantages,” Worthington mentioned.
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Related Press author Will Weissert in Washington contributed to this report.
