Opinion: Want fries with those lies? Trump campaign hijacks McDonald's in anti-Harris stunt.
Donald Trump started the weekend bizarrely telling a rally crowd that late golf great Arnold Palmer had a large penis, and ended it pretending to be a McDonald’s worker who doesn’t give a hoot about the minimum wage.
It was the kind of Saturday/Sunday we should expect from a presidential candidate who keeps getting weirder, more petty and less tethered to reality. Still, even with the expectation of inappropriateness and lame stunts, Trump’s weekend was jaw-dropping.
Let’s start with the McDonald’s bit because, quite frankly, I’m still processing Saturday’s extended riff on Palmer’s genitalia.
Trump pretends to work at McDonald's in fabulous Dukakis-esque moment
On Sunday, the Trump campaign took over a McDonald’s in Feasterville, Pennsylvania, thanks to a franchisee, Derek Giacomantonio, who agreed to close the restaurant to the public for the day. That allowed Trump’s handlers to stage-manage a fake “shift,” with Trump making some fries and working the drive-thru window.
He was at it for less than a half-hour, which I’m sure was exhausting. The customers he served were supporters who had been prescreened and, according to The Washington Post: “No one ordered food. Instead, the attendees received whatever Trump gave them.”
I assume that was a Sad Meal and a large Orange Dukakis. (Trump wearing a McDonald’s apron drew comparisons to Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis’ disastrous 1988 photo-op in an M1 Abrams tank. Both moments featured candidates looking dumb and wholly out of place.)
Trump has no evidence to support claim Harris never worked at McD's
What made the elaborate stunt particularly ridiculous was the reason behind it. Trump wasn’t trying to appeal to voters who work in the fast-food or service industries. He was trying to make an inconsequential and unfounded point.
Trump has claimed without evidence that Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris never worked at a McDonald’s when she was in college, as she has often claimed.
He has literally nothing to back up the accusation, and also: Who cares? It’s a tiny part of Harris’ background and work experience. But because Trump is the smallest person on the planet, he has to make a big to-do about it because he thinks it’s a sick burn.
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“I’ve now worked for 15 minutes more than Kamala,” Trump lied, uselessly.
Trump's McDonald's trip showed no empathy for minimum-wage workers
As if to hammer home that Trump’s McDonald’s visit was a stunt and he doesn’t care about working people, Trump responded to a question about raising the minimum wage with this: “Well, I think this. These people work hard. They’re great. And I just saw something – a process that’s beautiful.”
I’ll take that as: “I can’t be bothered to care about minimum-wage workers, I’m too busy pretending I’m making a point.”
(I wonder if McDonald’s ran a criminal background check on Trump before letting him work there. I know for a fact he’s out on bond and has a number of felony convictions.)
Trump tells crowd some things about Arnold Palmer's manhood
It’s possible many Americans missed Trump’s drive-thru theater-of-the-absurd performance Sunday because they were still trying to recover from his Saturday riff on Palmer, the late PGA great, and his penis.
“Arnold Palmer was all man. And I say that in all due respect to women, and I love women," Trump said, preparing to answer a question absolutely no one has been asking. "But this guy, this guy, this is a guy that was all man. This man was strong and tough. And I refuse to say it, but when he took showers with the other pros, they came out of there, they said, ‘Oh, my god, that’s unbelievable.’”
He said he refuses to say it, and then he said it. Trump continued: “I had to tell you the shower part of it because it’s true. What can I tell you? We want to be honest.”
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No we don’t. We don’t need to be honest when we’re running to be the guy in charge of the nuclear codes and we’re standing in front of a large crowd of people and we randomly start talking about the size of a guy’s penis. We don’t need that at all.
That’s called “weird,” and when you’re 78 years old, it’s called “troubling,” as deteriorating mental acuity can bring with it a loss of inhibitions.
A penis riff near the end of a presidential candidate isn't a great move
The moment earned Trump headlines like:
Trump isn't doing much to knock down concerns about his mental acuity
For a candidate who suddenly – and quite belatedly – has the media noting that he’s old, not making much sense and refusing to release his medical records, telling a bawdy tale about a beloved athlete’s ding-a-ling isn’t what you’d call “helpful.”
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And the fact that the same candidate forced his campaign to create a fake fast-food photo-op highlighting a nonissue? That shows, again, that Trump is vindictive, utterly self-obsessed and wildly erratic.
Not the kind of weekend you want near the end of a campaign.
But it fits, since Trump is not the kind of candidate anybody should want as president.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Opinion: Trump riffs on Palmer's penis, fakes McDonald's shift. He OK?