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McDonald's nightmare of a week could have been worse

Working Lunch: Through serendipity, campaign watchers saw a lapse of food-safety protocols replayed right before their eyes.

McDonald’s may have dodged a public tarring last week when it became a backdrop for the presidential election just days before it was plunged into a food-safety crisis.

As even casual news-watchers were reminded incessantly, Republican Party nominee Donald Trump stepped behind the counter of a McDonald’s two Sundays ago in the curiously named Pennsylvania town of Feasterville to work the fry station. It afforded an opportunity for the former president to once again air assertions that Democratic Party rival Kamala Harris had never worked under the Golden Arches as she claims. To date, he’s not offered any evidence, drawing solely on his intuition. 

In any case, observers noted something curious about the hour or so Trump spent at the franchised unit’s fryer and drive-thru, as the co-hosts of the Working Lunch podcast recounted during this week’s episode. The unabashed champion of McDonald’s scooped and handed out fries without wearing anything atop his trademark bouffant hairdo, flouting one of the most rudimentary of food-safety protocols.

Two days later, the fast-food behemoth announced that it was pulling Quarter Pounders off the menu of units in 12 states because 49 customers had been sickened by E. coli. Headquarters emphasized that the outbreak had been traced to ingredients in the sandwiches and not to any lapses in their preparation. 

Health authorities neither griped about Trump’s lack of a hair covering nor in any way suggested the lapse should raise questions about how 75 McDonald’s customers were sickened by E. coli. But online conspiracy theorists were not as responsible, according to Working Lunch co-host Franklin Coley, whose day job is running the Orlando government-affairs consultancy Align Public Strategies with fellow pod emcee Joe Kefauver. 

Persons from shadowy corners of the internet have suggested the food-safety officials in the Biden administration, Harris’ current political perch, made up the story to punish McDonald’s for giving Trump a spotlight. 

Coley dismissed the assertions as ridiculous, but noted that there is a danger inherent in a big brand being dragged into a political machination. “The risk here in having your brand hijacked in this way is that you lose control of your brand when elected officials are using your brand to their advantage,” he explained.

But there is a significance to both parties giving McDonald’s a “bear hug” in their campaigning, as Coley put. Give a listen for a peek at how the hopefuls tried to paint the Golden Arches blue or red.

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