policy
FEASTERVILLE-TREVOSE, Pa. (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump manned the fry station at a McDonald's in Pennsylvania on Sunday before holding an impromptu news conference and answering questions through the drive-thru window.
As reporters and aides looked on, an aide showed Trump the best way to dip baskets filled with French fries in oil, salt the fries and use a scoop to load them into boxes. Trump, a known fast food fan and notorious germaphobe, expressed surprise that he didn't need to touch the fries along with his hands.
“It actually takes a lot of expertise to do it right and quickly,” Trump said with a smile, putting away his jacket and wearing an apron over his shirt and tie.
The visit got here as he sought to refute Democratic candidate Kamala Harris's campaign reports of working on the fast-food chain while in college, an experience that Trump has claimed – without providing evidence – that it never happened.
A big crowd lined the road outside the restaurant in Feasterville-Trevose, which is an element of Bucks County, a key swing voter area north of Philadelphia. Later Sunday, Trump attended a night town hall in Lancaster before watching the Pittsburgh Steelers' home game against the New York Jets.
After serving bags filled with take-out food to people on the drive-thru, Trump, still wearing his apron, leaned out the window to reply questions from the media staged outside. The former president, who has consistently spread falsehoods about his 2020 election defeat, said he would respect the outcomes of next month's vote “if it was a fair election.”
He joked about getting ice cream for a reporter, and when one other asked him what message he had for Harris on her sixtieth birthday on Sunday, Trump said, “I would say, happy birthday, Kamala,” adding : “I think I’ll get her some flowers.” .”
Trump didn’t respond on to an issue about whether he would support higher minimum wages after seeing McDonald's employees in motion, but said, “These people work hard. They're great.”
He added: “I just saw something… a process that is beautiful.”
When his aides finally urged him to wrap things up so he could head to his next event, Trump said, “Wasn't that a strange place for a press conference?”
Trump has focused in recent weeks on the summer job that Harris reportedly held while she was in college: While in college, she worked the money register and made fries at McDonald's. Trump says the vice chairman “lied about working there” but offered no evidence of that.
“When Trump is desperate, all he can do is lie,” Harris campaign spokesman Ian Sams said Sunday. “He can't understand what it's like to have a summer job because he was handed millions on a silver platter only to screw it up.”
In an interview on MSNBC last month, the vice chairman dismissed Trump's claims and said she worked on the fast-food chain 4 many years ago while in college.
“One of the reasons I even talk about having worked at McDonald's is because there are people in our country who work at McDonald's and are trying to raise a family,” she said. “I worked there as a student.”
Harris also said, “I think part of the difference between me and my opponent is our view of the needs of the American people and our responsibility to meet those needs.”
Trump has long made unsubstantiated claims about his opponents based on their personal histories, particularly women and racial minorities.
Before running for president, Trump was a number one voice of the “birther” conspiracy, which baselessly claimed that President Barack Obama was from Africa, was not an American citizen, and subsequently couldn’t be president. Trump used it to boost his own political profile by demanding to see Obama's birth certificate, and five years after Obama did so, Trump finally admitted that Obama was born within the United States.
During his first presidential run, Trump repeated a tabloid's claim that Texas Sen. Ted Cruz's Cuban-born father had ties to President John F. Kennedy's assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. Cruz and Trump competed for the party's 2016 nomination.
When Trump faced Nikki Haley, his former UN ambassador, within the Republican primaries in January of this 12 months, he shared a post on his social media network with the false claim that Haley's parents weren’t residents when she was born and she or he Therefore, he was not eligible to be president.
Haley is the South Carolina-born daughter of Indian immigrants, which routinely makes her a native-born citizen and meets the constitutional requirements to run for president.
And Trump continued to spread unfounded claims in the course of the campaign. Trump said during his presidential debate with Harris that immigrants who settled in Springfield, Ohio, were eating residents' pets – a claim he claimed in an interview on Saturday was still true, although he didn’t provide any confirmation could.
During Trump's visit, police closed the busy streets around McDonald's. Authorities cordoned off the restaurant as a crowd gathered across the road, stretching for a couple of blocks, sometimes 10 to fifteen people deep, attempting to get a glimpse of Trump. Horns blared and music blared as Trump supporters waved flags, held signs and took photos.
John Waters, of nearby Fairless Hills, had never been to a Trump rally and had hoped to see the previous president so near his home after missing other rallies nearby.
“As I pulled up, all the cars, unbelievable, I thought, 'He's here, he's coming, he's definitely coming with all this traffic,'” Waters said.
Trump has a specific fondness for McDonald's Big Macs and Filet-o-Fish sandwiches. He has often spoken about how he trusts large chains greater than smaller restaurants because they’ve reputations to uphold, and the previous president's staff often picks up McDonald's and serves it on his plane.
Barrett Marson, a Republican strategist in Arizona, said it was a “puzzling detour” to make use of a campaign visit to deal with claims about McDonald's 4 many years ago, but Trump was “not afraid to throw something down.” toss to see if it sticks.”
“If Donald Trump isn't talking about the economy and illegal immigration, then he's off topic when it comes to the things that people care about,” Marson said.
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Associated Press author Will Weissert in Washington contributed to this report.
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