Now that she’s the Democrat presidential nominee, Kamala Harris has been leaning on her purported prior fast-food job experience as a talking point on the campaign trail, attempting to project an everyday working man image.
However, a wide-ranging investigation by the Washington Free Beacon published Thursday was unable to turn up any evidence corroborating Harris’ claims she once worked a summer job at McDonald’s.
According to the Free Beacon, Harris’ first mention of Mickey D’s came when she ran for president in June 2019, telling a Las Vegas crowd the “Golden Arches” were “falling short” as she pushed for a minimum wage increase.
I worked at @McDonalds when I was a student, doing french fries and ice cream. There wasn’t a family relying on me to pay the bills — but that’s the reality for too many workers today. Proud to stand with @SEIU today for livable wages and a safe working environment. pic.twitter.com/essu9q63JF
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) June 14, 2019
She then recalled the job during an appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show in April, saying, “I did. Yes, I did work at McDonald’s. When I was at school … I did fries. And then I did the cashier.”
However, according to the Beacon, no previous mention of Harris’ McDonald’s job appeared before 2019, even in “both of her memoirs, published in July 2010 and January 2019,” titled respectively, “Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer,” and “The Truths We Hold: An American Journey.”
Dan Morain, the biographer who wrote the 2021 book, “Kamala’s Way: An American Life,” also told the Beacon he was “not aware” of Kamala’s quaint job history.
Harris’ purported burger-flipping boasts have also been touted by both The Washington Post and The New York Times, neither of which bothered to verify the claims.
The Daily Beast, without proof, also published an article earlier this month claiming, “Harris Could Become First U.S. President to Have Worked at McDonald’s.”
Looking further into the matter, the Beacon obtained Harris’ 1987 job application for an Alameda County law clerk position a year after graduating college, which made no mention of a McDonald’s job.
“On that form, Harris, who was in law school at the time, listed several jobs—including a month-long clerical job at a stock brokerage—in a section that asked her to list every position she held in the last 10 years. McDonald’s is absent,” the Free Beacon pointed out.
Additionally, the Free Beacon even attempted to contact “The previous owner of an Alameda McDonald’s that opened in 1982,” however their effort was fruitless.
There was also a narrative shift on the McDonald’s story earlier this month, according to a Politico article, which said staffers changed an ad stating Harris worked there to “pay her way” through college, changing it instead to say she did so “just to earn a bit more spending money.”
The former fast-food worker spiel is now a focal talking point mentioned by Harris at every campaign rally and at the Democrat National Convention, with running mate Tim Walz and former President Bill Clinton also mentioning the work history.
“Can you simply picture Donald Trump working at a McDonald’s, trying to make a McFlurry or something?” Walz asked a crowd a labor event in Los Angeles earlier this month. “He couldn’t run that damn McFlurry machine if it cost him anything.”
Similarly, Clinton joked at the DNC last week, “she’ll break my record as president who has spent the most time at McDonald’s.”
Former Pres. Bill Clinton referenced Vice Pres. Kamala Harris’ time working at McDonald’s in her youth as an example of her character.
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— ABC News (@ABC) August 22, 2024
McDonald’s archivist Michael Bullington directed Infowars’ inquiry to the company’s media team; however, they have not responded to our request for comment as of writing.
The Free Beacon noted Kamala’s neglect to mention her fast food experience until just recently is atypical of a politician.
Politicians who worked menial food service jobs as teens are often quick to mention it as proof of their working class bona fides. Future president Barack Obama, during his 2008 campaign, said his first job scooping ice cream at a Baskin-Robbins in Honolulu instilled in him the virtues of responsibility and hard work.
But unlike Harris, there was no mystery surrounding Obama’s first job. News outlets published the address of the restaurant. Photographers posted pictures of the establishment online. Baskin-Robbins proudly touts on its website that Obama used to scoop ice cream for the chain. The manager of the store quipped after the 2008 election that she was somewhat of a media professional after having dealt with reporters from Good Morning America, CNN, and a television station from Norway asking questions about Obama.
Even left-leaning “fact-check” site Snopes has their investigation into Harris’ McDonald’s work assertion on hold, refusing to weigh in at the moment, instead rating the allegations, “Research In Progress,” since Tuesday.
While, it’s still possible she held a fast-food position in the 80s, the Free Beacon argues “the absence of that detail in public records and her campaign’s coyness and refusal to provide any further details raise questions about what is now a foundational narrative.”