On Sunday afternoon, former President Donald J. Trump traded his blue sport coat for a yellow-trimmed apron.
At a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania, he manned the fry line and dispensed orders to supporters in the drive-through lane. His ketchup red tie stayed put. He did not wear a hairnet.
“I could do this all day,” said Mr. Trump. “I love McDonald’s, I love jobs, I love to see good jobs.”
He may love jobs, but he doesn’t have much experience with jobs like this. Nor was he really dressed the part.
Beyond the apron, Mr. Trump was apparently insulated from the rest of the uniform modeled by his brief burger-flipping compatriots. He didn’t change into the pedestrian dark shirt and slip-resistant shoes like the rest of the McDonald’s staff. Mr. Trump didn’t plop on a McDonald’s branded visor. Certainly, he was the only “employee” at the franchise on Sunday to be packing orders in a shirt with French cuffs.
On Sunday, the visual differences between Mr. Trump and the franchise’s employees mostly served to underscore the obvious: that the former president, saltshaker skills or no, exists in a vastly different class of someone working a service job to get by. Mr. Trump, who once claimed his net worth to be $9 billion, wears suits from Italy’s Brioni, which can run as much as $14,000. It would take a fast-food employee in Pennsylvania working at the state’s $7.25 minimum wage over 1,900 hours to make that much money — and that’s not accounting for taxes.
Though he told reporters earlier in the day that he had wanted to work at McDonald’s all his life, a burger flipper job was just never something the former president needed. He began his business career working at his father’s real estate company and aside from film and television stints, Mr. Trump never held a job at a company that didn’t bear his family name. His briefer than an “Apprentice” episode gig as a 78-year-old fry cook, appears to have given the billionaire former president his first taste of working a service job.
His unpaid campaign stunt reaffirmed Mr. Trump’s well-crafted image as a rich man with relatable, unvarnished sensibilities. He sells gold sneakers, he wears trend-agnostic baggy suits, he swears in campaign speeches, likes his name in big gold letters and noshes on greasy fries. He’ll even humble himself by making them.
But, if he humbled himself it was only temporary.
In that sense, Sunday’s stopover from Mr. Trump had all the contours of a visit from another recognizable national figure: Ronald McDonald. Both figures have well-defined outfits, neither comply with the standard McDonald’s uniform and both appear in service of a photo-op, rather than fast-food efficiency. Mr. Trump, after all, only managed to dole out a handful or so of orders.
That’s not to say Mr. Trump didn’t look at home beside the heat lamps. An avowed McDonald’s devotee, Mr. Trump appeared to relish learning the proper salt portion (he was liberal with the shaker, telling reporters “I love salt”), which size is the most popular (medium, for the record) and how long it takes to fry a fry. A notorious germaphobe, he was wowed by the metal scooper, which didn’t require him to touch any fries with his hands.
“I’ll never forget this experience,” Mr. Trump said beaming. “Now I know how to do it.”
It’s unlikely he’ll ever put that skill to the test again. The oddest thing about Sunday’s Mickey D’s cameo could have been witnessing Mr. Trump doing any culinary work at all. There is scant evidence of Mr. Trump cooking for himself. He had a butler for almost 60 years who told The New York Times in 2016 that he knows exactly how Mr. Trump likes his steaks: “rock on the plate.” In a 2005 episode of “Martha,” while cooking meatloaf, Mr. Trump declared, “This is fun, I’ve never done anything like this before, I like it.”
Back in Pennsylvania, after about 25 minutes, Mr. Trump abandoned his post at the drive-through and headed off to a town hall in Lancaster, leaving his colleagues in oil behind. (The fry orders don’t stop once the motorcade departs.) Arriving at his rally later in the afternoon Mr. Trump’s blue sport coat was back on. The apron was nowhere in sight.
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