Claim Kamala Harris was fired from McDonald’s is satire | Fact check

An Aug. 29 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) includes a picture of Vice President Kamala Harris and a claim about a job at McDonald’s she says she had in college.
“McDonald’s Corporate Confirms: Kamala Harris DID work for them in the summer of 1981,” reads text on the image. “She was fired for stealing.”
Some commenters on the post appeared to believe the claim was authentic.
“Well that says it all, she stole from McDonald’s, She has stole more than that, and now she’s trying to Steal from us the American Citizens, and what’s very disgusting is, she gets paid for it all, how shocking (sic),” one user wrote.
“Nothing surprises me anymore. She must have wanted those nuggets badly,” another user wrote.
The post was shared more than 6,000 times in six days.
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The post is labeled as satire and comes from a satirical Facebook account and website.
Harris has talked during both of her presidential campaigns about working at McDonald’s in college, using the anecdote in both 2019 and 2024 to make the case she understands middle-class and working-class voters. However, conservatives have seized upon her not including her summer job making fries on an application for a position as a law clerk, spurring accusations that she never worked there.
The Harris campaign has provided no proof of her employment under the golden arches, nor have critics provided proof she did not work there. McDonald’s has not weighed in about her employment, either.
The claim a corporate official said she was fired came from America’s Last Line of Defense, a network of satirical websites and social media accounts.
Christopher Blair, the network’s operator, told USA TODAY most of his posts about Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, are designed to “ultimately be positive stories that end up bouncing around the echo chamber.” The Harris McDonald’s story, linked in the Facebook post’s comments, for example, says she stole McNuggets to feed the homeless. A story with a headline saying Walz operated an “escort service” in college said it was actually a tutoring service named that because he could only afford a Ford Escort.
The satire is clearly labeled everywhere it is presented. The Facebook post was on the network’s page for America – Love It Or Leave It, and the photo in the post is labeled as satire. The account’s profile page also says, “Nothing on this page is real.”
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Snopes and PolitiFact also debunked the claim.
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