Ocasio-Cortez: 'Trump thinks that people who work at McDonald’s are a joke'
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) slammed former President Trump for his recent visit to a McDonald's in Pennsylvania, suggesting the photo op was just an attempt at "connecting" with voters.
"You’ve got Donald Trump putting on a little McDonald’s costume because he thinks that’s what people do," Ocasio-Cortez told a crowd of people Monday during an event with the United Auto Workers (UAW).
"They’re not trying to empathize with us. They are making fun of us," she added. "Donald Trump thinks that people who work at McDonald’s are a joke."
Her remarks come after Trump visited the fast-food chain in Bucks County, Pa., on Sunday, donning an apron and working the drive thru and fry station.
The New York Democrat also knocked tech billionaire and Trump ally Elon Musk for pledging to give away $1 million a day to voters for signing his political action committee's petition backing the First Amendment, which protects freedom of speech, and the Second Amendment, with its right “to keep and bear arms.”
"We see Elon Musk coming in here. He’s doing these little contests where he’s promising people a million dollars in some kind of lottery giveaway if they sign up for his list," she said, "You have a billionaire just dangling a million bucks to those of us and many of us who are struggling to make ends meet if they dance for him."
Ocasio-Cortez added that Musk "thinks that dangling money in front of a working person is a cute thing to do."
She continued in her appeal to working class voters, arguing that Trump and Musk "have no idea what our lives are like."
"They think this callousness is a way of connecting," she said at the UAW event. "It’s not a way of connecting, because you and I both know that when that camera turns on and they turn around and go into their car, they’re laughing at us, they think we are the suckers."
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, also accused the former president of disrespecting McDonald's workers during the campaign stop — which was largely seen as an attack on Vice President Harris, who has described her time working at the restaurant during college.
The Trump campaign has sought to capitalize on the visit, selling T-shirts with a photo of the former president working in the drive thru.
McDonald’s, in the wake of the event, emphasized its political neutrality.
The Hill has contacted the Trump campaign and Tesla for Elon Musk for comment.