A ballroom full of McDonald’s franchise owners in Washington, D.C. got a customer complaint on Nov. 17, 2025, and it came from the sitting President of the United States. Donald Trump was speaking at the McDonald’s Impact Summit 2025 at the Westin Hotel, and somewhere between the economy talk and the thank-yous, he told the people who actually run the restaurants what he wants fixed. Not the fries. Not the nuggets. The fish sandwich, and the amount of tartar sauce on it.
“I like the fish. I like it. You could do a little bit more tartar sauce, though, please. Seriously,” Trump said, adding that he hates having to ask for extra. The Filet-O-Fish, a sandwich most people forget exists, is the one he singled out in front of the only crowd on earth that could do something about it.
The Tartar Sauce Complaint Landed With The Room
The line got knowing laughs from the franchise owners and operators in the audience, and Trump leaned into it, making eye contact with one man who clearly shared the grievance. Anyone who has ever peeled back the wrapper on a Filet-O-Fish and found a smear the size of a nickel understands the problem. It is a small sandwich with a steamed bun, a square fried fish patty, half a slice of American cheese, and a sauce ratio that varies wildly depending on who built it.
Trump also used the stage to call himself one of the chain’s “all-time most loyal customers,” saying that while other politicians fly around on campaign planes stocked with expensive catering, on his plane “we served only McDonald’s almost every time.” That part checks out against years of reporting on what he actually eats.
The Full Order Is Four Sandwiches, Not One
The Filet-O-Fish is his favorite, but it has never been the whole order. The 2017 tell-all “Let Trump Be Trump,” written by former campaign officials Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie, put one dinner order on the record: two Big Macs, two Filet-O-Fish, and a chocolate malted. That is four sandwiches and a shake, ordered as one meal, by one man.
Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, put it in a book too. In his 2022 memoir “Breaking History,” he wrote that he knew Trump was recovering from COVID in October 2020 when he asked for a Big Mac, a Filet-O-Fish, fries and a vanilla shake. The fish sandwich turning up in two different books, written by people with no reason to coordinate, is the strongest evidence that what he said in that ballroom was not a bit.
He Reportedly Throws The Buns Away
That double-double order has been estimated at about 2,430 calories, which is the number that gets quoted every time someone writes about it. It is probably too high. Corey Lewandowski later told CNN that Trump “never ate the bread,” and taking the buns out drops the count to roughly 1,880.
Picture that for a second. Four opened sandwiches, four discarded tops and bottoms, a pile of bread on the tray, and a man working through the patties and the fish with a shake going warm next to him. He has said he does something similar with pizza, taking the top off and leaving the crust, and he has been photographed eating it with a knife and fork.
On The 2024 Trail, The Order Got Bigger
Joe Gruters, who became chairman of the Republican National Committee in 2025, has marveled at how much food Trump put away during the 2024 campaign. By his account, there were hot fries from McDonald’s waiting when Trump arrived, followed by a Filet-O-Fish, a Quarter Pounder and a Big Mac. Different burgers, same fish sandwich. The Filet-O-Fish is the constant in every version of this story.
He is also particular about what comes off. Trump is not a pickle guy and has his removed, which on a Big Mac means losing one of the only sharp notes in the whole thing. Combine the no-pickles rule with the no-buns rule and the “more tartar sauce” request, and a clear pattern emerges: he wants more of the sauce and the protein, and less of everything else.
Why A Billionaire Eats In The Drive-Thru
The explanation he has given publicly is consistency. Back in 2016, talking to CNN’s Anderson Cooper about his preference for McDonald’s and Burger King, Trump said: “I’m a very clean person. I like cleanliness, and I think you’re better off going there than maybe someplace that you have no idea where the food’s coming from.”
In the same answer he said a single bad hamburger could put McDonald’s or Wendy’s out of business. The logic is that a national brand has far more to lose from one bad batch than a random kitchen does. Michael Wolff’s book “Fire and Fury” claimed a fear of being poisoned also factored in, since nobody can plan ahead for a motorcade that pulls into a drive-thru lane unannounced.
The 30-Minute Fry Shift He Still Talks About
On Oct. 20, 2024, Trump put on an apron and worked the fry station at a McDonald’s in Feasterville-Trevose, Pennsylvania, dropping baskets into the oil and handing bags through the drive-thru window. It became one of the most photographed moments of the campaign.
He brought it up again at the summit. “I’m honored to stand before you as the very first former McDonald’s fry cook ever to become President of the United States,” Trump said, before taking a swing at his 2024 opponent. “And I actually was there for about 30 minutes, and that was 30 minutes longer than Kamala was there, right? Despite her job at McDonald’s, that didn’t work out too well.” He then thanked the McDonald’s employee who told his campaign that then-Vice President Kamala Harris never worked for the chain. Harris has said she worked there in college.
The Four Food Groups On The Plane
“Let Trump Be Trump” described what was stocked on the campaign plane as the four major food groups: McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, pizza, and Diet Coke. The Diet Coke is the one that never leaves. The New York Times reported in 2017 that he drank up to 12 cans a day, and a button on the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office summons one. It was removed after his first term and put back when he returned in January 2025.
The Big Mac gets the ceremonial duty. He served them at White House dinners for two championship college football teams in 2019, and at the summit he said he talked Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. into eating one. Trump said Kennedy loved it and joked that the famously health-focused Kennedy did not want that publicized.
What He Eats When It Is Not McDonald’s
KFC gets eaten with a knife and fork, bucket and all. Pizza Hut has a long history with him, including a 1995 commercial for stuffed crust, though he skips the crust in real life. Steak comes extremely well done with ketchup, and his former Mar-a-Lago butler told the New York Times it was cooked so hard “it would rock on the plate, it was so well done.”
During his first four years in office, he was known to eat at only one restaurant in Washington: BLT Prime inside his own hotel. The order was shrimp cocktail, well-done steak, and fries. In 2019, when the Clemson football team visited the White House to celebrate a national championship, he fed them hundreds of burgers and pizzas from McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King and Domino’s and called it great American food. “If it’s American, I like it,” he said.
He Really Does Know The Menu
Stopping at a McDonald’s during a February 2023 trip to Ohio after the East Palestine train derailment, Trump told the cashiers he knew the menu better than they did, and probably better than anybody in the building. Then he bought food for everyone inside and for the local fire and police departments. Say what you want about the claim, a man with this much McDonald’s on the record has earned a certain familiarity with the board.
Our Verdict On The Presidential Order
The Big Mac is the publicity. It is what you serve to a college football team on silver platters and what you hand a health secretary to prove a point. The sandwich he actually went out of his way to defend in front of a room of owners and suppliers, the one he asked them to change for him, is the Filet-O-Fish. That is the tell.
If you want to eat like the president, the documented order is two Big Macs, two Filet-O-Fish and a chocolate shake, no pickles, buns discarded. Nobody needs to go that far. Order one Filet-O-Fish, ask for extra tartar sauce at the register instead of fishing for packets later, and skip the Big Mac entirely. He is right about the sauce. He is wrong about the bun, which is the only soft steamed thing McDonald’s still does well.
