Vance questions media's lack of curiosity over Harris' McDonald's work claim
'Why don’t they just do some journalism? Maybe it’s true. Maybe it isn’t.'
Sen. J.D. Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee, questioned the lack of curiosity of the mainstream media to look into the disputed claims of Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris, who said she once worked at McDonald’s.
During an appearance on “America’s Newsroom” with Fox News’ Bill Hemmer and Dana Perino on Monday, Vance said he and former President Donald Trump have discussed Harris’ claim of working at McDonald’s during her college years.
“What we find weird about this is that Kamala Harris has been able to produce no evidence that she worked at McDonald’s,” Vance stated. “And she didn’t even talk about it until 2019 during, I believe, her first run for the United States Senate, so I don’t know what’s ultimately true here.”
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“But it’s interesting where the media will try to nitpick and micromanage every single thing that me or Donald Trump has said,” he added, “and yet, they just buy into this narrative from Kamala Harris that she invented five, six years ago.”
“Why don’t they just do some journalism? Maybe it’s true. Maybe it isn’t. But I know I don’t trust the media’s lack of curiosity about this issue when they’re so curious and nitpicking everything else that the Republican candidates do."
Last week, Trump donned a McDonald's apron and learned the process of cooking fries and working the drive-thru at a franchise in Pennsylvania. During his brief shift, Trump quipped that he'd worked at the fast-food chain 15 minutes longer than Harris.
The New York Times reported last Sunday that the Democratic nominee’s campaign said Harris worked at the McDonald’s on Central Avenue in Alameda, California, during the summer of her freshman year at Howard University.
Harris’ campaign and the McDonald’s Corp. did not respond to The Christian Post’s request for comment.
The NY Times also interviewed Wanda Kagan, a friend of Harris’ from high school, who said she remembered the former California senator having worked at a McDonald’s around the time Harris attended college.
In anticipation of cooking fries at McDonald’s, one of Trump’s aides told reporters last week that the purpose was so “one candidate in this race could have actually worked at McDonald’s.”
Harris campaign spokesperson Ian Sams told the NY Times that Trump’s claim that the vice president never worked at McDonald's were invalid.
“When Trump feels desperate, all he knows how to do is lie,” Sams asserted. “He can’t understand what it’s like to have a summer job because he was handed millions on a silver platter, only to blow it.”
During his appearance on “America’s Newsroom,” Vance praised Trump’s stint at the fast-food restaurant and disregarded criticisms that the campaign stop was staged because customers who went through the drive-thru were pre-screened for security reasons.
Vance added that it’s a given the former president would have security measures in place, especially after facing two assassination attempts on his life.
“He can’t just walk into a McDonald’s and sign a W-9 and actually go on the payroll,” he said. “That’s just not how this works, especially given the security threats on his life.”
"But look, he was interacting with people. He was talking to the employees. He was giving people food, and he was just being, I think, what he does best, which is just being among the people, talking to them about what they care about."
Vance said Trump showed "genuine interest in the employees and their lives and where they came from and what they were actually doing in their job. And that’s something you can’t stage, and you can’t fake," he added.
He went on to describe Trump as “genuine,” suggesting that this is the reason why working people feel a connection to the former president despite his status as a wealthy real estate billionaire.
