CBS Mornings and NBC’s Today went apoplectic on Monday over former President Trump’s campaign stop at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s, melting down over the “staged” event with “prescreened supporters” by the campaign (and presumably the Secret Service) and falsely arguing Trump “claim[ed] without any evidence that Vice President Harris didn’t once work at the fast food chain[.]”
By doing so, the Harris lemmings ignored extensive reporting by the great Washington Free Beacon, which has spent months covering this Harris claim that has zero concrete evidence to support it, including from McDonald’s itself.
CBS co-host Tony Dokoupil twice hit Trump, downplaying it as “staged” event. White House and campaign corresponded Ed O’Keefe had the network’s 2024 report and shared that Trump went “on offense last night in battleground Pennsylvania, visiting a Pittsburgh Steelers game” after “a day of campaign stops.”
This, O’Keefe explained, “included a visit to a McDonald’s, closed just for him, where he tried scoring political points after claiming without any evidence, that Vice President Harris didn’t once work at the fast food chain while in college.”
He then played a clip of Trump saying “she never worked at McDonald’s,” but dutifully rebutted that as though he were a Harris surrogate: “She says she did. He leaned through the drive-through window to take reporter questions, but wouldn’t say if he supports boosting the minimum wage.”
Elsewhere in his report, he fawned over Harris’s 60th birthday including a serenade from Stevie Wonder and lamented Trump stooped to “a new level of bizarre comments” with “12 minutes” Saturday “about the late golfer Arnold Palmer” and “attacked Harris with vulgar language” (the s-word).
In the show’s third hour, Dokoupil revisited the “unusual, unexpected” visit by Trump to don “an apron...and...worked the fry machine for a little while.”
Dokoupil quickly poo-pooed this act of retail politics:
Now, you might think there's just everyday normal McDonald's customers there in line, but no, the people at the drive through, we are told, were all prescreened supporters. Meanwhile — there is a prescreened supporter right there happy to get fries from the former President.
Well, it’s worth pre-screening those who interact with Trump given the reality that, along with Iran itself, two different people have nearly assassinated him this year.
As for NBC, Trump correspondent Garrett Haake huffed about Trump “using profane language” Saturday and turning the next day to “a lighter tone” with a shift “working the fry cooker outside Philadelphia, passing drive-through orders to customers prescreened by the campaign.”
“The former President greeting voters...but also using the backdrop to claim without evidence that Harris isn’t being truthful working about her time working at a McDonald’s while a college student,” he griped.
Haake also took on the Palmer remarks, kvetching Trump’s “vulgar” comments about Palmer’s manhood “raised eyebrows” as a way to tee up Harris’s Sunday MSNBC appearance.
ABC’s Good Morning America downplayed Trump at McDonald’s, likely fearing this would make Trump seem like an actual human being.
Vicious Trump hater Rachel Scott only had this: “And, at a campaign photo op at McDonald’s, the former President fixated over whether Harris ever worked there[.]”
Instead, Scott whined with a Super Size-d portion of hyperbole about Trump’s “closing message” not containing a “vision for the country,” but “vulgar language and profane attacks” on her beloved Vice President Kamala Harris (click “expand”):
SCOTT: Donald Trump has never been a conventional candidate. He rarely sticks to a script, but his closing message in the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania is drawing attention this morning, not for what he said about his vision for the country, but because of his vulgar language and profane attacks. Over the weekend, Donald Trump barnstorming Pennsylvania for what his campaign said would be the starting closing message to voters.
TRUMP: If we win Pennsylvania, we win the whole damn thing, right?
SCOTT: But his rally in that must-win state took a lewd and vulgar turn. The former President opening his speech with a 12-minute diatribe about the late golf legend Arnold Palmer, who grew up in the town, and how other players reacted after seeing him in the shower.
[TRUMP CLIP]
SCOTT: When Trump eventually turned to his rival, used profanity to attack Vice President Kamala Harris.
TRUMP: So you have to tell Kamala Harris that you’ve had enough, that you just can’t take it anymore. We can’t stand you. You’re a [EXPLETIVE] Vice President. The worst.
SCOTT: Trump drifted throughout his speech. In one 30 second rift, he went from pushing false claims about the 2020 election to complaining that President Biden is no longer in the race, to talking about his hair.
TRUMP: He got 14 million votes and he won, 22 people running, 22 Democrats — they’re running. Oh, I’m looking at my hair up there. Let’s see. Oh. I don’t like it. I don’t like it. Excuse me, I’m gonna recomb my hair. Do you mind? I’ll leave the stage for five minutes. I am going to recomb my hair, Mr. Future Senator. We have David down here, Mr. Future Senator. You gotta get him in.
SCOTT: Despite pleas from his allies to focus on the issues, not personal attacks, Trump has only escalated his rhetoric. For the third time in just one week, repeating claims that his political opponents are the enemy from within. At one point, even suggesting they could be, “easily” handled by the military.
TRUMP [on FNC’s MediaBuzz, 10/20/24]: The outside people, they might not be enemies. If you have a smart president, they can be handled
SCOTT: During an interview with Fox News he was presented with facts to challenge him on his false claims about January 6.
[TRUMP-KURTZ CLIP]
SCOTT: Over a dozen members of the mob have faced gun charges as part of the attack.
ABC had Mary Bruce — Disney’s in-house North Korean news lady for the Biden-Harris administration — cheered Harris on for “dialing everything up, doing more events, hitting more battleground states with more star power, and punching back even more at Donald Trump[.]”
Bruce continued on with more fluff and touted the false claims about how Georgia woman Amber Thurman died (click “expand”):
BRUCE: With just over two weeks to go, Harris shifting strategy, calling Trump out in near real time overnight responding to his recent profane attacks against her.
HARRIS [on MSNBC’s PoliticsNation, 10/20/24]: It demeans the office and I have said and I’m very clear about this. Donald Trump should never again stand behind the seal of the president of the United States. He has not earned the right.
BRUCE: Harris is upping her warnings about Trump, labeling him as unstable and unhinged and seizing on reports that Trump is exhausted by the rigors of campaigning.
HARRIS: Have you notice he tends to go off script and ramble and generally, for the life of him, cannot finish a thought and he has called it the weave?
BRUCE: She’s also increasingly using Trump’s own words against him, in campaign ads and at her rallies, especially to highlight the issue of abortion. In Georgia, Harris welcoming the family of Amber Thurman, who blamed the state’s strict abortion ban for her death and accusing Trump of creating a health care crisis across the country, calling him cruel.
HARRIS: He even smirked Amber’s family for sharing their story. Play the clip.
HARRIS FAULKNER [TO TRUMP]: Amber Thurman’s family have come out on a press call and they’re doing what’s called a prebuttal to our town hall right now.
TRUMP: Oh, that’s nice.
FAULKNER [TO TRUMP]: Yeah? And I wanna get —
TRUMP: We’ll get better ratings, I promise.
HARRIS: What we see continually from Donald Trump is exactly what that clip shows. He belittles their sorrow, making it about himself and his television ratings. It is cruel and listen, I promised Amber’s mother that we will always remember her story and speak her name, Amber Nicole Thurman.
BRUCE: Now. Harris is also leaning into her star power, appearing this past weekend with Stevie Wonder, Usher, and Lizzo. Now, this week she’ll be on the trail for the first alongside the Obamas. Now, today, she’s hitting all three of those critical blue wall states, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. She’ll be out with Liz Cheney.
To see the relevant transcripts from October 21, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS Mornings), here (for CBS Mornings Plus), and here (for NBC).
