Did Kamala Harris work at McDonald’s? Here are the facts

One of Donald Trump’s latest attacks on Kamala Harris centres around her claim that she once worked at McDonald’s.

The Democratic nominee says she worked at the burger chain’s Alameda, California branch over the summer of 1983, when she would have been 19 or 20 years old and a student at Howard University in Washington.

The claim has been repeatedly referenced by Democratic campaigners to contrast Harris’ middle-class roots with Trump’s ‘silver spoon’ upbringing.

Trump – a die-hard McDonald’s fan – has repeatedly accused Harris of lying on the matter.

What has Harris said about working at McDonald’s

A whole election cycle ago, in June 2019, Harris at a picket line with fast food employees told the Las Vegas crowd: ‘I worked in McDonald’s. I was student when I was working at McDonald’s.’

She shared a video of her remarks and wrote on X (formerly Twitter), that she was ‘doing french fries and ice cream’.

Fast-forward to the 2024 race, Harris’ campaign unveiled an August 10 ad stating that ‘she worked at McDonald’s while she got her degree’ at Howard University, and that ‘Kamala Harris knows what it’s like to be middle class… Donald Trump has no plan to help the middle class, just more tax cuts for billionaires.’

And on August 31, Harris described herself on X as ‘a daughter of Oakland, California, who was raised by a working mother and had a summer job at McDonald’s’.

Harris was also asked about her stint on Drew Barrymore’s talk show earlier this year, telling the actor: ‘I did fries. And then I did the cashier.’

What has Trump said about Harris’ McDonald’s claim?

He most recently tried to stir up the issue with an elaborate photo op which saw him serving fries to customers at a Philadelphia-area McDonald’s on October 20.

‘I’m looking for a job,’ he told the owner of the franchise. ‘And I’ve always wanted to work at McDonald’s, but I never did.

‘I’m running against somebody that said she did, but it turned out to be a totally phony story.

‘It was a big part of her resume that she worked at McDonald’s — how tough a job it was.

‘She … made the french fries, and she talked about the heat: “It was so tough.” She’s never worked at McDonald’s.’

The branch was closed for business while Trump’s campaign team hand-picked a few customers who were allowed to order at the drive-thru, insiders told NBC News.

Trump first accused Harris of lying during his remarks at the Moms for Liberty convention on August 30, telling a crowd in Washington: ‘After an exhaustive study that took about 20 minutes, they found out she never worked there.’

There is no record, public or otherwise, of a ‘study’ on the matter and Trump has never clarified what he was referring to.

He later wrote on his Truth Social platform: ‘Comrade Kamala Harris lied about working at McDonalds. SHE NEVER WORKED THERE, they think she’s “nuts.”‘

He has continued to drill at the topic, posting on September 1 a poorly-made mock-up of Harris in a McDonald’s kitchen wearing a Golden Arches hat, with French fries, a burger and coke in the foreground.

‘Kamala said she worked at McDonalds — She never did. Lie!’ he wrote.

What has McDonald’s said about Harris?

McDonald’s has not come out with any statement confirming or denying that Harris worked for the company.

Trump’s supporters have seized on a handful of social media posts claiming that the company contradicted Harris’ claims.

For example, a widely-shared Facebook post on August 31 based on a screengrab of a Truth Social post stated: ‘McDONALD’s CORPORATE has come forth and said they have no record whatsoever of KAMALA HARRIS ever working at any of their locations.

Two days prior, Students for Trump chairman Ryan Fournier claimed on X that ‘McDonald’s Corporate sources have come forth and said they have no record of Kamala Harris working at any of their locations.’

Fournier has been forced to retract a number of controversial claims in the past after they turned out to be false.

The company behind the brand is called McDonald’s Corporation; there is no entity called ‘McDonald’s Corporate’ and the name has only been used for one of the company’s TikTok accounts.

Did Harris really work at McDonald’s?

On August 29, the Trump-supporting conservative news outlet Washington Free Beacon reported that McDonald’s was not listed on Harris’ resume the year after she graduated from college.

Neither of her memoirs written in 2010 and 2019 mention McDonald’s, the outlet added.

Fact-checkers Snopes, who rated Harris’ claim as ‘unproven’, say: ‘Harris has made this claim repeatedly over the years, and multiple reputable news outlets have reported on the story.’

‘But, aside from Harris’ testimony itself, there is no evidence (such as a photo, employment record or confirmation from a friend or family member) to independently verify the claim.’

It may be that Harris has evidence but believes that releasing it would do more to fan the flames of conspiracist thinking which is a key pillar of Trump’s support.

In the years up to his 2016 run against Hillary Clinton, the Republican billionaire continued to fuel the ‘birther’ movement questioning Barack Obama’s US citizenship even though it had been put to bed in the minds of most reasonable people by the release of birth certificate documents in 2008 and 2011.

Trump accepted Obama was born in the US live at a campaign event – at which he even claimed the conspiracy was started by Clinton and ‘finished’ by him.

A poll conducted the following year – when Trump was now president – found 26% of Americans still believed Obama was not born in the US.

While Trump and his supporters have failed to put forward any evidence for their accusations, there has been nothing solid to substantiate Harris’ version of events either.

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