Donald Trump’s appearance in criminal court on Monday has raised many questions, constitutional and otherwise, but on the evidence of the first day I find myself most curious about the former president’s McDonald’s order. During jury selection last week, the Daily Mail reported on a $700 (£560) McDonald’s order put in by Trump staffers that included 27 orders of fries, 27 quarter pounders, a bunch of nuggets and no drinks. A McDonald’s employee complained anonymously that they didn’t leave a tip – in line with everyone who eats at McDonald’s – but still.
Anyway, this week, the Trump order was down to $500, although the Mail couldn’t confirm the itemised details due to management having cracked down on staff leaking. And while these orders were presented as “huge”, the fact is – a much commented on reality in New York – McDonald’s prices have gone through the roof in the last year and $500 doesn’t go far. (You’re lucky to get in and out for under $50 if you go in with two kids.) Which is shame because a quarter pounder with cheese with a cheeky cheeseburger on the side isn’t banal, it’s sublime.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Back in 2019, the New Yorker called Trump’s insistence on ordering fast food to the White House for visiting college football teams to enjoy, a piece of “banality”.
Liz Truss in Washington DC, still desperately trying to suck up to the Americans in general and Trump in particular, disinvited the Guardian from her book launch this week, which the former prime minister may have intended as a personal slight since the whole thing was livestreamed anyway.
(As David Smith reported, the message came through to the Guardian office last Friday that, “due to space limitations, we unfortunately must rescind your in-person invite”, while elsewhere her team encouraged the public to attend.
Truss’s persona post her spell as prime minister seems to have doubled down on that very particular verbal style that marries demotic modes of expression with a fixation on small, random details it can be hard to work out how she arrived at.
It is gauche, I know, to visit the UK and complain about the weather, but I’m sitting here typing this with a hot-water bottle on my lap, nursing the cold I managed to avoid all winter and asking myself, not for the first time, what is wrong with this country?
As Trump’s criminal case continues to unfold, a depressing end to the week in the form of Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 conviction for sex crimes being overturned by the New York court of appeals.
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