Did Kamala Harris Work at McDonald’s? Her Past Job Explained

Question

Did the vice president lie about working at McDonalds to get more votes from middle and lower class families? Donald trump said that she lied, where did he get that information from?

Answer 1

This article seeks to verify or disprove Kamala Harris’ claim that she worked at McDonalds when she was younger. The article is from Hollywood Life which is a gossip column, and not the most trustworthy source. It’s written by Elisabeth McGowan, who has mostly written only for gossip columns similar to Hollywood Life in the past, so this doesn’t add much legitimacy to the article. The source this article referenced for its information was newsweek.com, which got its information from nytimes.com, which is a reliable and legitimate source. These three articles all use the same evidence, which makes sense as they feed off of each other, but none of them are really making a claim for either side of the argument so much as just presenting inconclusive evidence for both sides. To back up Trump’s claim that Harris is lying, they present the fact that there is no hard evidence to prove that she worked at McDonald's. To argue on behalf of Harris, they present the fact that McDonald’s did not keep a record of all of their workers from the time that Harris claimed to work there, so the lack of record is not very significant. The only source they used to back up Harris’ claim was confirmation from her friend Wanda Kagan, which is definitely not the most reliable information seeing as Kagan is bound to be biased as Harris’ close friend. In conclusion, there really is no conclusion presented in either this article or the sources it references. There is no hard evidence that Harris worked at McDonald’s and also no hard evidence that she didn’t, so it seems that the most efficient thing to do is simply move on from the topic.

Comments

Is the claim true? False? Other? Always "rate" the claim and mention it clearly within your fact-check. Thanks!

Answer 2

There’s no conclusive evidence for either option. While the Mcdonald’s she claims to have worked at did say that there was no record of her time there, the company later sent out a clarifying letter to employees that in the 80s employment records weren’t exactly sacrilegious and her record being missing is not an abnormality. Another of evidence leveled against her is that on a college job application her time at Mcdonald’s was not listed under experience. However, considering that she was applying for a law clerk position it might not have been relevant. While its absence on the application could be considered somewhat suspicious, it’s not conclusive. The final bit of circumstantial evidence pointed to is that in an early cut of a campaign ad the claim was made that Harris worked at Mcdonald's to put herself through college, but this was quickly changed to working there over the summer. This could very well be a mistake on the ad creators part, especially since it was rectified before it ever went to air. The Washington Free Beacon was the first sight to imply that Harris lied about her time at Mcdonald’s. The main takeaway we all should get from this is that it doesn’t matter.

Source for clarifying letter-Washington Post

Source for law application-Forbes

Source for ad mixup-Politico

original claim-Washington Free Beacon

Answer 3

There are two sides in this argument: Harris worked at McDonald's (claim made by Harris herself) and that Harris did not work at McDonald's (baseless claim made by Trump, under the impression that she is lying). In an interview from last month (September 2024) with MSNBC, Kamala Harris claimed having had worked at a McDonald's when she was a student: "Part of the reason I even talk about having worked at McDonald’s is because there are people who work at McDonald’s in our country who are trying to raise a family. I worked there as a student." The HollywoodLife article doesn't provide evidence of Harris' past employment at a McDonald's chain. However, to defend candidate Harris, they refer to a Newsweek article, which states, "'We and our franchisees don’t have records for all positions dating back to the early ’80s.'" The writer of the article, Elisabeth McGowan, has written multitudes of articles regarding gossip about public figures in the entertainment industry, which does question the credibility of this source. The logline of the article is, "So, is it true that she worked at McDonald's?", yet it doesn't completely address the question at hand. There is no precise conclusion provided to prove/disprove either claim.

Answer 4

This claim is by far the truest claim I’ve seen on this website. In the article provided by zelli_gibeau (Kamala Harris McDonalds), Kamala said in an interview, “Part of the reason I even talked about having worked at McDonald’s is because there are people who work at McDonalds in our country who are trying to raise a family,” she pointed out. “I worked there as a student.” That simple action she said had to 100% prove that she did actually work at McDonalds, and shouldn’t be questioned by her competitor “Donald Trump” if she did or did not work there.

Answer 5

First and foremost, using "The Hollywood Life" as an accredited source questions its reliability and accuracy already. After reading the source in this article, Newsweek.com, it clearly states that they do not have records dating back to the 80's on employment status. The Hollywood Life used this sentence structure to attempt to debunk her claim of working at McDonalds. An article from NBC News supports her claim as a former employee and states that Donald Trump is doing this for unnecessary reasons.