President Trump is a man of uncompromising tastes. Faced with the world’s most exotic cuisine on diplomatic trips to Saudi Arabia and Japan, he didn’t deviate from his usual order of burnt steak with ketchup (in the first case) or a burger and fries (in the latter, this week). Now Politico reports that Trump’s exacting palate required former bodyguard Keith Schiller to make a McDonald’s run when the White House chefs couldn’t properly replicate the fast food chain’s burgers.
Schiller, a longtime Trump aide who left the White House in September, would dash out to McDonald’s on York Avenue in D.C. and bring Trump back a Quarter Pounder with cheese, no pickles and extra ketchup, and a fried apple pie for dessert.
It was business as usual for Schiller, who during the presidential campaign would dash into the Mickey D’s near LaGuardia Airport while Trump waited in the car. His order, Politico reports, was often an Egg McMuffin in the morning and “two Quarter Pounders with cheese and a large fries later in the day.”
Trump has been vocal about his love for McDonald’s in the past. He told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that his favorite order was the Filet-O’-Fish, and said he prefers fast food because he found it more hygienic. “I’m a very clean person. I like cleanliness. I think you’re better off going there than someplace you have no idea where the food is coming from. It’s a certain standard,” Trump told Cooper in 2016. “The one thing about the big franchises: one bad hamburger, you can destroy McDonald’s. One bad hamburger, you take Wendy’s and all these other places and they’re out of business.”
Schiller, who was Trump’s bodyguard at the Trump Organization and became the “Director of Oval Office Operations,” attracted widespread attention when Trump dispatched him to deliver a pink slip to former FBI director James Comey, who learned of his firing from TV screens while delivering a talk to FBI employees.
The former aide will testify before the House Intelligence Committee this afternoon, likely about Comey’s firing and the Steele dossier that links Trump to Russia.
