7 Stupid Moments From Trump’s McDonald’s Summit Speech

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Telling McDonald’s employers to fight minimum wage increases
While Trump’s prepared remarks included many vague or exaggerated claims about how he’s made life more affordable for everyday Americans, at one point he did let it slip that he doesn’t want the “little guy” to have too much money in his pocket.
“Wages for hourly workers are rising at the fastest pace in 60 years. The minimum wage thing is something you’ll have to be talking about. You’re going to have to fight it,” he told the franchise owners.
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Claiming his McDonald’s “skit” was the most-Googled thing ever
Trump repeatedly came back to how much fun he had “working” as a McDonald’s fry-cook during the 2024 campaign. At one point he claimed that Google founders Larry Page and Sergey told him his “skit” was the most searched thing ever.
“They called me the following day after I did that McDonald’s little skit — because it wasn’t a commercial, you got it for nothing,” he said. “And I didn’t know them. They told me … that it received more hits than anything else in the history of Google and that record, it still stands.”
This claim makes absolutely no sense, but conveniently it’s impossible to verify because Trump offered no details on what “it” meant. Does he think “Trump McDonald’s” is the most searched term in the history of the search engine? Is he referring to the pageviews for some campaign video? Who knows!
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Rambling about renaming the Gulf of Mexico
While praising himself for making Coca-Cola switch to using cane sugar in the U.S. (or really, just offer a sugar variety alongside the usual a high-fructose corn syrup version), Trump abruptly pivoted to praising himself for renaming the “Gulf of America.”
“I said you’ve got to go to sugar, just like I said why is the Gulf of Mexico called the Gulf of Mexico? I said, ‘we’re changing the name.’ And now it’s the Gulf of America,” Trump said.
Does this have anything to do with McDonald’s? Trump sort of acknowledged it doesn’t, while making the “cuckoo” sign with his finger, and continuing his musings.
“It has nothing to do with McDonald’s, but maybe it does. Because it’s very nice. We have 92 percent of the shoreline. I don’t think I made a lot of friends in Mexico.”
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Taking an unprovoked shot at Tom Cruise
Incredibly, the Gulf of Mexico tale wasn’t Trump’s most off-topic point. For some reason the speech to McDonald’s owners also includes an elaborate tale about the military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities in June. And somehow this led to Trump mocking Tom Cruise for being short. The president said the pilots who flew the B-2 bombers — including the female pilot? — were “all handsome” like the movie star, except for one thing.
“They looked like Tom Cruise. They really do,” Trump said. “I don’t want to be a wise guy and say ‘But taller.’ I’m not gonna say that. No.”
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Admitting his remarks are more “weave” than actual speech
Is it great that we’ve devolved to the point where the president of the United States is just making odd noises during his speeches? Perhaps not. But at least Trump is at least somewhat aware that his remarks are all over the place. He noted at one point that he didn’t care what McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski did with a signed copy his prepared remarks, which he’d given him backstage.
“You can either hang it, you can give it to somebody, or throw it away, I don’t care,” Trump said. “But I don’t stay on the speech too long, anyway. Actually those speeches aren’t too accurate to what I give.”