For President Donald Trump, McDonald’s is to food as Fox News is to TV channels ― just the best in the field. Trump has praised the fast food giant’s “great” products and general “cleanliness.” Now a new book suggests there’s another, darker factor fueling his McDonald’s habit.
In a preview of his tell-all book, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, journalist Michael Wolff claims that Trump’s “longtime fear of being poisoned” has affected his dining choices.
It’s “one reason why he liked to eat at McDonald’s—nobody knew he was coming and the food was safely premade,” Wolff wrote in New York Magazine on Wednesday.
Trump’s fears of contagion, deliberate or otherwise, also led to “new rules” at the White House that prohibited staffers from touching his toothbrush and other personal items, according to Wolff. It’s not clear if the president believed a specific person or group was out to harm him.
The revelation about Trump’s poison concerns is just one of the fascinating assertions Wolff makes in his soon-to-be-released book. The president allegedly expressed extreme displeasure with members of his inner circle ― Steve Bannon “was disloyal (not to mention he always looks like shit)” ― curiosity about what a “golden shower” entails and a disinterest in constitutional literacy.
“I got as far as the Fourth Amendment before his finger is pulling down on his lip and his eyes are rolling back in his head,” a campaign adviser tasked with explaining the Constitution to then-presidential candidate Trump told Wolff.