Vice President Kamala Harris has been accused by Republicans of lying about her first job at a McDonald’s. They allege that Harris’ McDonald’s stint was not mentioned on the resume she submitted in 1987 to the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office for a position as a paralegal. They allege that none of her outside biographers wrote about it and that she did not mention it until 2019, when she announced her candidacy for president.
One in eight Americans works at McDonald’s when they’re students, and Kamala Harris came from a humble background, working in the French fry and ice cream aisles and also as a cashier, she later said. There were two versions of why she took the summer job: One was to pay her tuition, and the revised version was that it was just a summer gig to make some money. Harris also said that no one depended on her McDonald’s earnings when she worked at a California outlet between her freshman and sophomore years at Howard University.

Kamala Harris listed several jobs she had held in her 1987 resume, including a month of clerical work for a baguette broker. But McDonald’s was not mentioned.
Why is this important?
Republicans are waging a vicious campaign against her, accusing her of lying and calling it “stolen courage.” GOP VP candidate J.D. Vance accused Kamala Harris’ running mate Tim Walz of stolen courage after Tim suggested he had fought in the war — which was not true. Going back to Kamala Harris, it is possible that her summer job in 1987 was omitted because it was not relevant to the position she was applying for — although the experience is now relevant to the Democratic campaign, as Kamala Harris, with her modest background as someone who, like most Americans, worked at McDonalds, will better understand the struggles of the middle class — unlike Donald Trump.