A history of Donald Trump's fast food addiction

The Golden Arches, FTW

On Wednesday, former President Donald Trump traveled to East Palestine, Ohio to see — up close and personal — the aftermath of the derailment of a train carrying toxic chemicals earlier this month.

And, he also made time to stop by a local McDonald’s to pick up some food. While there he told the crowd this: “I know this menu better than you do. I probably know it better than anybody in here.”

The Recount @therecount

Donald Trump to McDonald’s workers in East Palestine, Ohio: “I know this menu better than you do. I probably know it better than anybody in here.”

That is no idle boast. Trump has long had a fascination with — and appetite for — fast food that has been immune to the health warnings associated with consuming too much of it.

Trump is so closely associated with McDonald’s that there are differing reports of what his go-to order is at the Golden Arches.

According to former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, it’s “two Big Macs, two Filet-O-Fish and a chocolate malted.”

But, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner said Trump’s preferred order is: “McDonald’s Big Mac, Filet-o-Fish, fries and a vanilla shake.”

Trump, unsurprisingly, brought his fast food obsession with him to the White House.

“Because of the [government] shutdown, you know we have the great Clemson team with us, the national champions. So we went out and we ordered American fast food, paid for by me,” Trump said. “Lots of hamburgers, lots of pizza. We have some very large people that like eating. So I think we’re going to have a little fun.”

Asked about his own favorites among the spread, Trump said: “I like it all. I like it all. It’s all good stuff, great American food. And it’s going to be very interesting to see at the end of this evening how many are left.”

He repeated the move a few months later when the North Dakota State football team came to Washington — bringing in McDonald’s and Chick-fil-A for the players. “We could’ve had chefs, we could have, but we had fast food – because I know you people,” he said. “We like American companies, OK?”

While Trump made a bow to the idea that he likes fast food because it’s American-made, the truth of his affection for it is — as you might have guessed — a little more personal.

In a 2016 town hall with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Trump explained why he’s so drawn to fast food:

“One bad hamburger, you can destroy McDonald’s. One bad hamburger and you take Wendy’s and all these other places and they’re out of business. I like cleanliness, and I think you’re better off going there than maybe some place that you have no idea where the food is coming from.”

In essence, he believes that McDonald’s has so much to lose by a high-profile food poisoning incident that he trusts them to make food that won’t make him sick.

Author Michael Wolff took that even further, writing: “He had a longtime fear of being poisoned, one reason why he liked to eat at McDonald’s — nobody knew he was coming and the food was safely premade.”

And then there’s this: Trump is skeptical that fast food is actually, well, bad for you.

Asked in a 2016 interview with the Golf Channel what a typical day of meals looked like for him, Trump responded this way:

“It’s not probably healthy but I’m not sure I believe in that. You eat — who knows — they say don’t eat this, don’t eat that — but who knows maybe those things are good for you.”

Trump’s, um, counter-conventional view on the potential benefits of fast food mirrors his opinion about exercise.

Trump believes in what is described as the battery theory of life. That is, your life force — just stick with me here — is a finite resource. You are born with a certain amount of it and it drains throughout your life. One of the things that drains it is — you guessed it! — exercise.

This, from the book “Trump Revealed” by Washington Post reporters Michael Kranish and Marc Fisher, explains Trump’s theory in a bit more detail:

“After college, after Trump mostly gave up his personal athletic interests, he came to view time spent playing sports as time wasted. Trump believed the human body was like a battery, with a finite amount of energy, which exercise only depleted. So he didn’t work out. When he learned that John O’Donnell, one of his top casino executives, was training for an Ironman triathlon, he admonished him, ‘You are going to die young because of this.’”

And then there’s this, from a 2015 New York Times magazine profile of Trump:

“Trump said he was not following any special diet or exercise regimen for the campaign. ‘All my friends who work out all the time, they’re going for knee replacements, hip replacements – they’re a disaster,’ he said. He exerts himself fully by standing in front of an audience for an hour, as he just did. ‘That’s exercise.’

So, yeah. Despite his wacky theories about fast food and exercise, Trump’s personal physician proclaimed in a December 2015 public letter that “if elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.” (The physician later said that Trump had personally dictated the letter to him.)

And, Trump and his team continue to make the case to anyone who will listen that, at 76, he is in far better shape and health than President Joe Biden, who is 80.

“ANYBODY running for the Office of President of the United States should agree to take a full & complete Mental Competency Test simultaneously (or before!) with the announcement that he or she is running, & likewise, but to a somewhat lesser extent, agree to a test which would prove that you are physically capable of doing the job,” the former president wrote on his Truth Social website earlier this week. “Being an outstanding president requires great mental acuity & physical stamina. If you don’t have these qualities or traits, it is likely you won’t succeed.”

Um, ok.