Did Kamala Harris work at McDonald’s? Here’s everything we know

What has Kamala Harris said? Why has Donald Trump jumped on it? Have McDonald’s confirmed she worked at the restaurant? All we know, here

The question of whether Kamala Harris ever worked at McDonald’s has become one of the most unexpected talking points of the election campaign.
The Democratic candidate has used it to burnish her middle-class credentials by claiming her time behind the deep fryer helped fund her way through law school.
But Republicans, led by Donald Trump, have pounced on Ms Harris’s claims, accusing her of lying in a desperate attempt to make her seem more relatable to voters.
McDonald’s reportedly said it could not confirm claims made by either camps because its records do not extend back to when the vice-president would have served french fries to customers.
“We and our franchisees don’t have records for all positions dating back to the early 80s,” it said in an internal memo circulated to staff, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Ms Harris has also failed to provide anything more than a vague account of her time at the golden arches.
When The Telegraph visited branches in the area where she claimed to have worked, we found staff had been told they were not to talk about whether she had ever worked at McDonald’s.
Now, Trump has taken things a step further, by entering the kitchen himself and serving up portions of fries to supporters at a franchise in Pennsylvania.
Asked how he found swapping his suit for an apron at the fast food restaurant, the Republican candidate said: “I’ve now worked for 15 minutes more than Kamala at McDonald’s.”
The ongoing sparring match has raised questions about the truth of Ms Harris’ claims and put pressure on the Democratic candidate to come clean about which restaurant she worked at.
Here’s everything you need to know about whether Ms Harris ever worked at McDonald’s.
The Telegraph visited all three McDonald’s restaurants in the Almeda region of California where Ms Harris claims to have worked and found that employees had been sworn to secrecy at one of the sites.
It is not known which branch she worked at, but at one location (pictured below), on Shore Line Drive, staff told The Telegraph they had been instructed by bosses not to talk about the vice-president.
The Telegraph understands McDonald’s head office has never commented publicly on whether Ms Harris was ever an employee.
The fast food giant has sought to stay out of the debate, and in an internal memo confirmed by the Wall Street Journal it said it did not have the records to confirm Ms Harris’s claims.
“We’ve been proud to hear former president Trump’s love for McDonald’s and vice president Harris’ fond memories working under the Arches,” it said in a message on Sunday.
“We and our franchisees don’t have records for all positions dating back to the early 80s.”
It added that Ms Harris had been offered a visit to its restaurants by franchise owners, after Trump visited a Pennsylvania McDonald’s in an attempt to show up the-vice president.
“Upon learning of the former president’s request, we approached it through the lens of one of our core values: we open our doors to everyone,” the memo added.
McDonald’s was contacted for comment by The Telegraph.
Ms Harris has spoken repeatedly about her time spent working at the restaurant, claiming her job there during her university degree in the 1980s inspired her to support working families.
“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,” she told MSNBC last month.
“I think part of the difference between me and my opponent includes our perspective on the needs of the American people and what our responsibility then is to meet those needs.”
Ms Harris said she first “did fries” at the restaurant and then worked as a cashier to help pay for her law degree at the University of California.
According to Quentin Fulks, her deputy campaign manager, she worked at a branch of McDonald’s in Alameda, California during the summer of 1983, while she was a student at Howard University.
Her time at the restaurant helped her to earn a bit more spending money, Politico reported.
Ms Harris’s story has been disputed by Trump and his supporters, with the former president accusing her of lying.
Ms Harris “lied about working at McDonald’s”, he told supporters at a rally in Detroit on Friday .“That’s like not a big thing, but can I be honest with you, it’s terrible,” he added.
Speaking to Fox News on Thursday, Trump claimed the restaurant manager had admitted she had never worked there.
“I know she didn’t [work there],” the Republican candidate said. “We checked it out. They said she never worked here. She even picked the store. We went to the manager. The manager’s been there forever.”
The Trump campaign has circulated a press release promoting a story from the Washington Free Beacon, which reported that the vice president did not mention McDonald’s on her CV when applying for a job as a law clerk in the Alameda County district attorney’s office in 1987.
Ms Harris did not refer to the job in either of her memoirs, published in 2010 and 2019, and appears to have first revealed the job during a rally in Las Vegas in 2019.
Neither Ms Harris nor Trump have offered proof of their claims about her job at the fast food restaurant.