Donald Trump's Go-To McDonald's Order Comes With A Lot Of Calories
Donald Trump's daily diet may not be what healthcare professionals consider ideal, with the president-elect often skipping breakfast and splurging at dinner. He has also made no secret of his love of fast food. During his first term as president, Trump treated the Clemson University football team to a banquet of items from McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy's. While he appreciates different chains, Trump seems to have a soft spot for McDonald's — and his go-to meal would nearly fulfill an adult man's caloric needs for the day.
But Trump isn't worried. He actually believes there are advantages to eating at fast food restaurants, particularly when he's on the road. "I'm a very clean person. I like cleanliness," he told CNN in 2016. "And I think you're better off going there than maybe some place where you have no idea where the food is coming from." He also appreciates the quality control of mass-produced foodstuffs. "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," he said.
Trump also reportedly believes consuming fast food is safer in other aspects. "[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," Michael Wolff wrote in his 2018 book, "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House." Trump may have lost weight leading up to the 2024 election, but he hasn't quit McDonald's.
Donald Trump likes to wash down several burgers with a milkshake
When hunger strikes and he's not home, Donald Trump believes he can't go wrong with an order of a Big Mac and Filet-O-Fish paired with French fries and a shake — vanilla, to be specific. That's what Jared Kushner, the husband of Ivanka Trump and Trump's former senior adviser, penned in his 2022 memoir, "Breaking History" (via The Hill). Accounts of Trump's favorite McDonald's meal vary slightly. In their book "Let Trump Be Trump" (via New York Post), Trump's former aides Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie claim he eats two of each burger and prefers chocolate malted shakes.
A November 17 Instagram post by Donald Trump Jr. confirmed Big Mac and Filet-O-Fish are Trump's go-to burgers. The photo showed father and son sharing a McDonald's meal with Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. aboard the president-elect's private plane. Trump paired his burgers with large fries and a small orange soda, so no milkshake this time. According to McDonald's nutrition calculator, Trump's meal clocked in at 1660 calories.
If we factor in the 480 calories from the vanilla milkshake Kushner claimed his father-in-law often gets, Trump's go-to McDonald's order gets him 2140 calories in one sitting. That's more than the recommended daily intake of a sedentary man over 60. We don't need to do the math for Lewandowski and Bossie's version to know that it contains too many calories. Trump's weight-loss efforts really must be happening away from the cameras.