That Donald Trump McDonald’s stunt: yeah, that McDonald’s wasn’t actually open. It was all a big political stunt, which you knew already.
“We plan to be closed on Sunday, October 20, until 4 p.m. to accommodate a visit at the request of President Trump and his campaign,” the owner of the McDonald’s in Feasterville-Trevose, Pa., in the southeast corner of the state, population 6,525, which went 56.4 percent for Trump in 2020, and 55.3 percent for Trump in 2016, wrote in a letter posted on the door.
The owner went on in the letter to claim that “we are not a political organization,” that the decision to host Trump was a result of simply being “proud to open our doors to everyone,” and to provide “a unique opportunity to shine a light on the positive impact of small businesses here in Feasterville.”
That’s our new friend Derek Giacomantonio, the owner of the location, trying to make sure that the 43.6 percent of his customer base that didn’t vote for Trump in 2020 doesn’t start going to the Burger King up the street in protest.
Thing is, this Derek Giacomantonio guy is a political guy, at least as far as politics impacts his personal bottom line.
“The regulation as proposed will hurt my business as it currently operates and my ability to grow my business,” Giacomantonio wrote in 2018, in a letter protesting a proposed increase in the salary threshold for overtime-exempt employees in Pennsylvania.
Giacomantonio wrote in the letter that the proposed increase would lead him to effectively demote his salaried management staff back to hourly, “which could mean a loss in pay,” because of course it would mean a loss in pay.
That sounds an awful lot like what we’ve been hearing from Trump at campaign events lately, about how Trump hates paying overtime.
This Giacomantonio guy also hates paying his employees a living wage, and his McDonald’s franchises have been the focus of protests by labor groups in Pennsylvania dating back several years.
Trump’s team arranged the photo-op to give him a platform to advance his stupid claim that Kamala Harris didn’t actually work at a McDonald’s one summer in college.
Trump smugly told reporters at his fake shift on Sunday that he’s now worked at a McDonald’s 15 minutes longer than Harris ever did, which, that’s a weird flex, but Donald Trump is a weird guy.
A reporter asked Trump if his 15 minutes working the fry station and the drive-through at the closed-to-the-public McDonald’s gave him any insight into the push by labor activists to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
Trump, whose father, Fred, named him the superintendent of an apartment building at the age of 3, and paid the 3-year-old Donald Trump a $300,000 salary to manage the building, of course can’t fathom the idea of $15 an hour.
“I think these people work hard,” Trump said, not answering the question. “They’re great, and I just saw something, a process that’s beautiful. It’s a beautiful thing to see. These are great franchises and produce a lot of jobs.”
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Chris Graham
