Vice President Kamala Harris celebrated her birthday on Sunday, but all eyes were on former President Donald Trump as he worked the French fry machine at a McDonald’s. Trump hosted a rally in Feasterville-Trevose, Pennsylvania, following through on a pledge to work at a McDonald’s after Harris claimed to work at the fast-food chain briefly during summer break while a student at Howard University.

“I come from the middle class — I worked at McDonald’s while I was in college,” Harris has said on several occasions. Trump subsequently alleged that Harris had never worked at McDonald’s but promised to go work there himself. Harris first mentioned her supposed McDonald’s experience in 2019, having never mentioned it either in decades of political campaigns or in the two semi-autobiographical books she’s authored. According to The Free Beacon, Harris’s job application for a law clerking position in 1987 also includes no reference to McDonald’s, although she was asked to list every job she’d held in the last 10 years. Furthermore, both Harris’s campaign and the owner of the Alameda, California franchise she claims to have worked for have refused to provide details to reporters.

Trump made good on his promise on Sunday, showing up at a McDonald’s franchise in Feasterville-Trevose, outside Philadelphia, and swapping his navy blue suit jacket for a McDonald’s apron. When asked what he liked best about McDonald’s, Trump replied, “I like it all, I like every ounce of it, everything. But I do like the French fries, where I’ll be working.” Referring to Harris’s McDonald’s claims, he continued, “I listened to Kamala, she said it was so hot, it was so hot, it was such a tough job.” He added, “We’re gonna see, we’re gonna learn how to do it right now.”

The former president spent time learning how to dunk the fries in oil, arrange them in a tray, and scoop them into a McDonald’s French fry container before serving them out the drive-through window. Trump, whom the Associated Press called a “notorious germophobe,” was clearly pleased that no one’s hands touch the fries. Speaking to a rally attendee out the drive-through window, he said, “You take it for granted: you say, ‘Give me French fries.’ I’ll never forget this experience, now I know how to do it. It’s beautiful, it’s clean, it’s nice, you never touch ‘em.” Another rally attendee collecting fries at the drive-through window thanked Trump for giving “ordinary” people hope. Trump responded, “Oh, you’re not ordinary. I can see, you’re not ordinary.” The man and his wife told Trump that they pray for him.

During his “shift,” Trump continued to needle Harris over her claims of working at McDonald’s. When asked why it was important that he work at a McDonald’s, the former president answered, “I love McDonald’s, I love jobs, I like to see good jobs.” He continued, “And I think it’s inappropriate when somebody puts down all over the place that she worked at McDonald’s — it was a big part of her resume, that she worked at McDonald’s, how tough a job it was, she specifically worked at where they make the French fries — she never worked at McDonald’s.” He added, “McDonald’s just confirmed that again, by the way.” Speaking to reporters through the drive-through window, Trump quipped, “Now I have worked at McDonald’s. I’ve now worked for 15 minutes more than Kamala.”

In a Truth Social statement posted shortly before donning his apron, Trump said, “We have checked with McDonald’s, and they say, definitively, that there is no record of Lyin’ Kamala Harris ever having worked there. In other words, she never worked there, and has lied about this ‘job’ for years.” He added, “Kamala Harris and Joe Biden are killing franchises, want to end all franchises, which will destroy values and jobs.” The owner of the McDonald’s franchise where the campaign event was hosted later published a statement from the McDonald’s corporation’s senior leadership team, confirming that there are no records of Harris working at a McDonald’s but inviting her and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D-Minn.), to spend some time at the fry machine.

Already, the memes have begun pouring in. Social media users have shared photos of Trump wearing his McDonald’s apron over his signature red power tie and white dress shirt with cufflinks, comparing the photos to the iconic Americana paintings of Norman Rockwell. Others have posted a photo of Trump leaning out the drive-through window and waving goodbye, saying that the image should be framed and posted in deportation centers so that it’s “the last thing” illegal immigrants see before being removed from the U.S. Another social media user posted a photo of his McDonald’s chicken nuggets with the caption, “Donald Trump gave me 7 nuggets in my 6 piece order.”

Others have commented on the marketing brilliance of Trump’s McDonald’s visit. Fox News commentator David Marcus said that the McDonald’s campaign event “Humanizes Trump[,] Wins the daily cycle[,] Mocks Harris’ stolen McDonalds valor[,] Clearly shows he’s not exhausted or senile[.] This is a pro shop. Not a team of DEI millennial hires who watch too much West Wing.”

Newsweek opinion editor Batya Ungar-Sargon commented, “Trump has a genius for exposing the lowest qualities of his enemies. By proudly putting on a McDonalds apron, he got them to spend 24 hours deriding one of the most common jobs for low income Americans, revealing once again their utter contempt for the working class.” One social media user said that “any other politician, including any that actually might have worked at McDonald’s before, pulling off this photo op would have looked massively disingenuous, but former US President Trump (a literal billionaire) doing it looks so natural.”

Another explained to social media users calling the event “staged” that they “don’t understand the appeal.” He said, “No one watching this is thinking, ‘Wow, Trump actually worked at McDonald’s, that so relatable!’ They’re thinking, ‘Wow, he did this just to spite the establishment candidate, that’s so relatable!’”

Trump’s running mate, Senator J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), explained that Trump “was interacting with the people, he was talking to the employees, he was giving people food, and he was just being what — I think what he does best — which is just being among the people, talking to them about what they cared about.” He added, “He showed, I think, 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 that you can’t stage and you can’t fake, that is just the genuine person that Donald Trump is.” Vance also said that it’s “weird” that Harris “has been able to produce no evidence that she worked at McDonald’s and she didn’t even talk about it until 2019.”

Some commentators have alleged that Trump took Harris’s unproven claim to work at a McDonald’s personally, given the former president’s love for the fast-food chain. Trump has previously told McDonald’s employees that “I know this menu better than you do.” Both Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, and campaign officials Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie have written in their memoirs of Trump’s love for McDonald’s food, noting that his favorite meal is usually “two Big Macs, two Fillet-O-Fish,” and a milkshake — sometimes a Diet Coke.

Keith Schiller, Trump’s security director prior to becoming president and his Oval Office Operations Director afterwards, and other White House staffers have reported that Trump would frequently order McDonald’s to the White House, often sending Schiller to pick up his meal. Famously, Trump hosted a 2019 White House banquet featuring piles of McDonald’s food, along with other fast-food chains’ meals. “I think we’re going to serve McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, with some pizza,” Trump said when planning the event. Referring to his college athlete guests, he added, “I would think that’s their favorite food. So we’ll see what happens.” When on trial in Manhattan earlier this year, Trump reportedly had bags of McDonald’s food brought into the courtroom for lunch.

In the hours following Trump’s campaign event, “McDonald’s” began trending on X.