McDonald’s Blames Trump ‘Uncertainty’ for Worst Sales Since COVID

You bent the knee.
Suffer the consequences.
- Exactly. Maybe they should ask the president to do another PR stunt to help sales. I hear advertising on the white house lawn worked great for Tesla's stock price. He should serve McDonald's on the white house lawn next. /s
  
  Nah, install a franchise next to the oval office.
  
  Something similar has already been done... 🤷‍♂️ 🤡

Last time I went, waited 20 min for 'fast food', then got hit with a large bill. Yeah, no shit sales are down. Haven't gone back in years.
- if i'm paying culver's prices. i'm going next door to culvers. service can be a little slow but they cook to order (not 'assemble and reheat to order') and is always a '10', food is usually too--and unlike mcdonalds' perpetually-'broken' ice cream machine, culver's never runs out of custard, ever.
  mcdonalds' only attraction was a low price--and that advantage has been gone for at least a decade.
  
  Culvers' burgers are top tier for fast food. So good.
  
  Culvers is cheaper than McDonalds, and it's actually really good quality food. They have a wide menu, too.
- Yep, at least in my area McDonalds is slow, expensive and the foods is consistently crappy. About the fast food place I have a lower opinion of is the local Wendys, because they haven't mastered the skill of "Let the buns from the fridge reach room temperature before serving them to customers." A lukewarm patty on a refrigerator cold bun isn't very appealing.
- Fake story. You get hit with the large bill before you wait for 20 minutes.
- You got lucky. Last time for me I waited 1hour+. Why? Because I ordered inside the restaurant instead of the drive-through. Apparently they have incentives to keep the drive-through queue small and fast.
  And I'm not even in car land (America). It was in Spain. I cannot even imagine what ordering in car land from inside the restaurant will take.
  EDIT:
  Fast food still exists though, it just doesn't come in the form of the usual American corporations. My local kebab fulfills the order in 5-10 minutes.
- honestly its bumpin now I dont spend more than $5
- You can get real food for the same cost now. Just no reason to go there

Dear McDonald's,
A big mac is not a $7 burger. It's not even a $4 burger.
That's all
- It's not even a real burger
  
  I doubt it's even a real Big Mac (as in using the original, unaltered recipe)
  If anyone wants the recipe, all of the old school McDonald's recipies are here: https://archive.org/details/mcmenu
  
  U don't like bread sandwiches?
  
  Such a stupid take. It’s fine if you don’t like it but it’s obviously a burger.

Maybe McDonalds shouldn't have endorsed a fucking dictator during the election?
- Right? It's absolutely part of why I don't spend money there. The other part being shit food that's too expensive, but letting this assclown promote your brand turned about half the country off of your products hard.
- I actually forgot about the endorsement until i read the article. Fuck mcd

I stopped eating there a year ago when I found out they were charging me about 50% more for not using their app.
- the one here remodeled awhile back to basically a drive-thru, door dash, and mobile app kitchen. dine-in and take-out is a nuisance to them. 10-15 minutes to get an order taken, that long again to get it. the counter and dining room have been designed to absolutely discourage those customers from even wanting to come inside at all.
  
  Yep. I don't go often anyhow but won't anymore as they don't even seem to take orders. You gotta use a kiosk and I refuse to waste my time doing that when a cashier could ring me out in 15 seconds. And definitely never installing an app.
  
  I hadn't been to a McD in ages, but I took my niece and her friend to an event and they wanted to stop there. It was the most dystopian eating experience I ever had.
  The interior was all off white and sterile (emotionally). There was no counter service, you ordered through a gigantic kiosk. Food took forever. As you said, the drive in and DoorDash seemed to be dominating the customer base. There were maybe 2 other tables in use during dinner rush.
  The funniest/saddest part to me, was it sounded like there was maybe just 1 employee in the kitchen, and at any given time, either a manager was yelling at them or a machine was beeping out orders, I'm assuming from the kitchen timers going or orders coming through. So the whole time we're waiting, which was a decent amount of time, I'm picturing this lone teenager being yelled out by a lineup of a middle age dude and a parade of machines.
  Food came out cold and not great, but about what I expect from McD's, which is why I don't like to go there. The kids just each got a Sprite and fries, which we could have gotten anywhere else...
  I honestly don't care all that much that the food is standardized to such a degree, that's it's made out of strange industrial processes, or even that it's always cold when all the other fast food places seem to at least have warm food. It's that no matter what I get, I always feel like I've never actually eaten anything. My stomach always feels as empty after I've eaten there. I eat a decent amount of not great for me foods, but McDonalds is the only thing that consistently feels so devoid of any nutritional value whatsoever. It just blows my mind every time.
  
  Aside from it already being shit to eat at a McDonalds to begin with, what sad life must one lead to order McDonalds home, when they could order anything else from the local burger, pizza, asian, kebap, etc. place for the same price in better quality and quantity.
  
  Ours burnt down, when they rebuilt it, they just didn't put an inside location at all. It looks like a storefront, but you can't open the front door. There are no tables, there is no play place, just a drive thru and Uber eats / DD / McDonald's app pickup area. If you're on foot, you can go fuck yourself I guess.
  
  The new ones around me are all like that. No drink station, no condiments, not even a napkin dispenser. The kitchen, which used to be open so you could see the activity, is blocked by a wall, so you have no idea what is happening back there. There is NEVER anyone at the registers, and if you want to order, youbhave to wait until someone hidden in the back happens to look out and notice that someone is waiting to order.
  Its obvious that they are getting ready to go fully robotic soon, and when they do, you wont have the ability to see how few people are in the back.
- Yeah, I would always cringe whenever I saw people ordering food in person and not using the app.
  It just shows front-and-center how abusive the relationship between businesses and customers is. Like, all of the employees knew you were getting ripped off but none of them told you anything about it.
  It's fucked.
  
  I'm aware the app has cheaper deals. I'm also not willing to enter a binding arbitration deal with them to save a few bucks. I just don't eat there.
  
  I don't blame the employee; they're not paid enough to give a shit.

Get fucked McDonald's, raising prices every year on cheap, crappy, unhealthy food. Get fucked, you literally voted for this. Fuck all the way off and enjoy your ride. Cunts.
- They literally donated so much to his campaign fund
  
  And curbed DEI immediately and eagerly.

This is only half bullshit. Quality is through the bottom level of hell on every metric at McDonalds. The ONLY reason I go is because they have a kids playplace. The app is essentially required, but sucks ass for usability. They took the soda machines out of most of them so free refills are basically gone, the prices are rediculous and the food sucks. Also, people are tightening belts because Trump (WHO MCDONALDS SUPPORTED) is an idiot.
- All of that gripe and you still go there instead of a public park?
  
  We spend a LOT of time at the local parks. I’ll guess you don’t have kids. Sometimes it rains, other times it’s cold, sometimes you need to get them to just put SOMETHING in their stomachs, because if they don’t, they’ll get hangry but don’t have the emotional or bodily intelligence to understand what’s going on.
  ChickFilA also has playplaces but they have their own set of issues.
  
  At least here in Los Angeles, many of the parks are unsafe for children. I found a knife in the playground last year.
- Stop going there.
  Do not teach your kids to compromise on their values.
  Plus those indoor play places are so hard to clean properly and unhygienic, you may inadvertently expose your kids to the measles virus or something.
  Take them to the YMCA or something.
- What do you mean the quality is bad?
  
  I have no idea what I’m looking at here.
- Heh. McDonald's here in Canada (at least the ones near me) is generally pretty good as far as fast food goes, my only gripe was the shitty app. Of course, we've already stopped eating there anyways; dumbest trade war in history

Most national/international fast food places seem to have looked at the "good, fast, cheap" principle and decided the answer is D) None of the above.
Have they been getting by on inertia and nostalgia in recent history? I could be an incredibly unlucky person, but all my experiences with these places have just been bad, bad in the past 5 or so years. I excused it a bit during the height of covid, but there's been time to work things out and they just haven't even bothered.
I'm not exactly their target audience, since I rarely get food at fast food places, but as it stands, if I were going to get fast food, the whole Trump McDonald's circus show has turned me off to that brand entirely. Burger King is a no-go after getting incredibly sick from their food. Taco Bell just completely gave up on themselves. Wendy's is so expensive now that I can't justify it anymore even as a guilty treat while traveling. I'd rather pack some ham sandwiches in a mini-cooler and make do with that.
- Not only is the food bad, expensive, and slow, but it's also unhealthy. They fuck up orders constantly and the dining area in unpleasant to be in due to the incessant beeping. That business has literally no redeeming qualities.
- These exact reasons are why places like Buc-ees, Sheets, and Chick-fil-A are doing so damn well. People actually feel like they are getting something they want (good, fast, and/or cheap), when compared to McDs which somehow provides none of them.
  
  Sheetz is no longer all that cheap. Chicken tenders and a drink (no fries) are now close to $11. Still fast and tasty though.
  
  Well not familiar with sheets but you certainly aren't getting cheap on the other two. Fast though yeah.
  
  Chick-fil-a is good and fast, but not cheap.
  
  Just wish Chick-fil-A wasn’t giving all their money to conversion camps.
- Fuck, you're so right.
  I didn't even realize how slow fast food as become over the years. Literally waiting on average 20 minutes in a drive-thru is not fast.
  
  Perhaps that's a local problem as I've never had to wait more than 5m for a drive through.
- With Wendy's, if you're looking for cheap, gotta skip their premium meals and go to their Meal Deals, Sandwich, nuggets, fries, drink for $5, more if you want extra meat/bacon.
  
  Not that I plan on going back to Wendy's, certainly not any time soon, but is that $5 deal a relatively new thing and/or a national thing?
  When I was a poor college student working multiple jobs and having to do a lot of driving to get from one place to another, Wendy's was one of my go-to places. For about $4 I could get 2 burgers that had real, fresh lettuce, tomato, onion, plus a drink. I went to Wendy's a year or two ago and the same exact thing was a bit over $11. For what it's worth, if they had some kind of $5 special, I didn't see it on the menu.
  Taco Bell was the same way. Back in my college days, I could get a couple 5-layer burritos and a drink for $3 and some change. Last time I went and got that order, it was $9 or $10 and the burritos were missing a few layers, not to mention just absolutely gross.

this pic is a year old. its worse now:
I mean, mcdonalds had to raise prices to make up for all the free food they handed out to the IDF, so I get it.
- I think they should have used an LA Taco Bell for the comparison.
  
  They're probably taking notes from the one in fuckin Seattle

...how about blaming trashy ~~fast~~ slow food priced higher than table service at a proper sit-down restaurant?..
- You're not wrong, but let's just see where this goes first. I'm not even sure the cheetoh poll higher amongst his fans than McDonald's.

Also their food fucking sucks and makes you fat and sick
- I used to accept the fat and sick part because of the price. Now it costs just as much to eat at a whole ass sit-down restaurant, why the hell would I go there?
- And they doubled the price in the past 10 years
  
  In 2020 I was moving into my house. Late night moving, 3am, I needed food. There's a McDs across the street. A'ight. Gonna have to happen. Get the shitty little cheeseburgers that's always been a dollar... no wait, they're not on the dollar menu... actually there's no dollar menu... fuck it... there's the meal for them.
  The two shitty cheeseburgers, small fries, small drink, over $8 plus tax.
  I've never been back to one since.
  
  It's mostly this one.
- I haven't really eaten fast food in years, but a few months ago I was sort of forced to get lunch at a Burger King because it was the only place around. It (a Whopper and onion rings) was actually pretty tasty, a lot better than what I was expecting. But I just felt so physically bad after eating it, like I just wanted to lay down somewhere and die. Maybe it was all the salt, I dunno. When you combine this with the insane prices, it's a just a mystery why anyone would eat this shit regularly.
  
  why does anybody become addicts? To escape from the stress of things they don't want to confront.
  And living in many urban USA areas just seems like a baseline stressful experience.

They turned in Luigi, likely by having facial recognition in all stores. This is not justifying what Luigi is charged with, but fuck McDonald's for being a part of that lie. Traitorous lying scum.
They have cameras pointing up at you from the register area when you place an order, apparently "just for QR codes." And all their fucking digital menus have cameras in them. Why exactly is that needed? Fraud prevention for the illicit big Mac?
McDonald's doesn't value privacy and I don't believe for a second a random employee there identified Luigi.
Between them trying to use AI on me to take an order (and likely trying to voiceprint me) and also just not caring about privacy at all, why the fuck would I go there? Nope.
I don't trust them at all. In the US, corporations are legally allowed to lie to you if the government approves so if they do have some program in cahoots with police for facial recognition, we would never know.
I'm not saying it's bad to catch bad guys who are religious radicals, but the government is not exactly trustworthy.
And, on top of this, they fucked everyone over on price, then lowered it slightly when they realized they stepped in dog shit, showing how price increases were partly price gouging.
Fuck McDonalds.
- i thought an employee turned in Luigi, not facial recognition...
  
  That's the official explanation, but the employees name was withheld and at the time there was a grainy picture of "Luigi" with only part of the person's face visible. It's possible but hard to believe.
- Between them trying to use AI on me to take an order (and likely trying to voiceprint me)
  Why do they need an AI to do that? People have been hollering into their ordering system for decades.

It's ok we shouldn't be eating that garbage anyway
- We need to educate the next generation on how to feed themselves easily on a budget.
  Right now, most of them don't bother making their own meals because they've been conditioned to treat food as an adventure that they can brag to their friends about every time.
  
  Peak boomerism.

Well, their "food" now costs as much or more than a nice sit-down meal. And, in my opinion, it's terrible.
- Exactly, some European countries will let you have a beer with your Maccies, but personally I’d rather have a meal at a pub or cheap restaurant, where the prices are similar.

I blame the $6 mcmuffins and $4 hash browns.
For the price of McDonalds, you can go somewhere with decent food these days. The o ly reason to go there is if you are in a super rush, and even then, c-stores are putting out increasingly good food these days that can be grabbed in 2 minutes.
- I paid $12 for a plate of two eggs, 2 sausage, 2 bacon slices, 2 slices of tomato, a hash brown, 2 slices of toast, and a large coffee at A&W the other day.
  Def the best breakfast for fast-food around.
  
  A&W is underrated

I guess Trump doesn't help, but it's also easy to point the finger. If eating at a fast food chain is no longer fast, cheap nor food (let's be honest). Is it then strange that sales are declining?
- I support all the Trump-bashing in the world, but let's not allow crappy big businesses to just blame everything on him. McDonald's has a responsibility and they haven't lived up to it. Blaming Trump for consumers not choosing your overpriced, shitty product is not reasonable.
  
  THE SHAREHOLDERS DEMAND MORE DIVIDENDS.
  MUST. CONTINUE. ENSHITIFICATION.

I’m in Canada.
A&W Canada (a Canadian owned company) provides higher quality food for cheaper prices.
Their breakfast beats McDonald’s by a lot — the hash browns are almost twice as thick. They also have not messed up my order once.
The McDonald’s nearby ducks up 50% of the time, takes forever, and costs more.
Why would I go there?
- Correct me if I'm wrong here - Canadian A&W is a different company than American A&W, right?
  
  Yes they are different companies.
  I haven't had American A&W in years but it's not very good compared to the Canadian one.
- A&W is cheaper than McDonald's now?
  
  It's similar
- Their Nashville chicken burger is decent.

Having to use a stupid fucking phone app to get less astronomical prices for bad food, poor service and rude/flippant employees is what tanked their sales.
I love the idea of blaming trump anyway because fuck that asshole.

I posted this elsewhere, but..
Their food started being so insanely priced that they made a post that was the equivalent of corporate propaganda back in 2024. This was disproven again and again and again.
Their greed has been hurting them because no one wants to pay the insane prices for shit food. They stopped competing with budget fast food, coming closer to fast casual. Like, if I'm gonna spend that cash, I might as well go to Five Guys or Red Robin.
I noticed similar drastic price increases at Little Caesars. $30 for two pizzas and a breadstick combo is insane especially since they use the worst ingredients and let their pizzas sit around all day. Dominos is actually cheaper in my area, why the hell would I ever go to Little Caesars?
- The McDonald's near me is across a small parking lot from a local BBQ joint that's priced equivalently. I don't know why anyone goes to McDonald's when you can see and smell the BBQ place's smokers from the drive-thru.
- Little Caesars is my go to for when I'm dead tired, and want a pizza right now and don't want to wait for an order. The convenience of the hot and ready is pretty nice. Having said that, the once $5 pizza is like $10 now I think, and as you said, the pizza is not great.
  McDonald's just straight up sucks. They took the one item I used to get off their menu - the chicken strips (which were one of the few non over processed garbage items on the menu) during Covid and never brought them back despite saying it was temporary. They also killed off all day breakfast during Covid which again, was something actually edible I'd get from them. Now, I've got no reason to go aside from during breakfast hours on a road trip or something. I've gone to get the kids a happy meal here and there when it was pokemon cards or something they wanted, but I don't even order food for myself in those instances. Too expensive, and quality sucks.

McD's has been expensive as fuck for years now. I can feed my entire family of 7 for under $20 at the Costco food court. That's something for McD's to aspire to.
- Costcos food court isn't their primary business, it's a loss leader.
  But it did result in the best CEO quote ever:
  https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/547020/costco-150-hot-dog-soda-combo-enigma
  "When longtime Costco president W. Craig Jelinek once complained to Costco co-founder and former CEO Jim Sinegal that their monolithic warehouse business was losing money on their famously cheap $1.50 hot dog and soda package, Sinegal listened, nodded, and then did his best to make his take on the situation perfectly clear.
  “If you raise [the price of] the effing hot dog, I will kill you,” Sinegal said. “Figure it out.”"
  
  Their hot dog is a loss leader. But yes, you're not wrong. Still. Feeding my whole family for under $20 is a feat.
  “If you raise [the price of] the effing hot dog, I will kill you,” Sinegal said. “Figure it out.”"
  Loved that about him. I hope Costco continues that. The fact that they didn't "bend the knee" the Trump and kept their diversity and inclusion policies says a lot.
  
  Side note, someone on here said they got banned from reddit recently for using that quote. AI mods in action.
- It's not just the value proposition that McDonald's can aspire to, but Costco's principles on how they run their business:
  
  Their ultimate goal is to reward their shareholders. Funny. I don't recall my paid membership giving me shareholder status.
  Fuck Dodge. And the Michigan supreme court.

The only reason to eat at McDonald's was because it was cheap and fast. It's no longer cheap and you can get better food for almost as fast elsewhere. STFU McDonald's.
- These days, you can get a REAL cheeseburger, fries, drink, and appetizer at Chili's for $10.99. If you are in their club, you also get a free chips & salsa. Add a $2 tip (18%), and its $12.99, cheaper than McDonalds for an excellent burger, and more food, in a decent sit-down restaurant. That's the same as McDonald's, so why wpuld you go there?
  
  And you can order online and pick it up of you want to eat at home.

Who the fuck is still spending money at McDonald’s in 2025?
Can someone get it through the mcds executive heads that they fucking suck?
I love how they had that cute little virtue signaling with that fucking shit gibbon of a fake president and now they’re like oh it’s consumer Spending. Let me tell you as a retail business it’s them.
They felt the need to signal to maga and they’re going to get what they get because maga are fucking broke and only have money to buy Shitty Chinese made red hats And fake American flags.
Dumb fucks.
- My boomer mother in law. Rural origins. Just... Likes the garbage she gets there because she's used to it. She actively dislikes fine foods with strong flavors. She would prefer to eat mushy overcooked pork chops in mushroom soup every night. Maybe a side of overcooked broccoli.
  Brags about eating bowls of saltine crackers and milk.
  
  That milk and crackers bit is so gross!
  I used to work with a lady that would refuse vegetables like a child. She had to be in her late 50s early 60s. She'd complain to me about health problems and then vehemently refuse any healthy alternative I'd put out there.
  
  Interestingly enough, where I live, it's McDonalds that has strong flavors. Not the most complex flavors or anything, but they at least put enough salt in their stuff that you can taste it. Plenty of fancier places make burgers that are better in every other aspect but sauce has little to no flavor compared to say, a Big Tasty. But of course the funny thing is, some of these places are now cheaper than McDonald's...

Eat shit, McDonalds.
- So, their own food?
  
  Yes. Overpriced and unsatisfactory bullshit.
- is this you telling mcdonalds to eat shit, or an ad for mcdonalds?
  eat shit, --mcdonalds.

McDonald's should fucking stfu
- After McDonald’s dumbass trump stunt during the election, the only reason that I’ll ever go there again is to take a dump in their bathroom on a road trip.
- Why? Even though greed is the real reason, the more big corporations speak out against Trump, the better. Doesn't matter if they're not doing it for altruistic reasons, so long as it pisses off the fat man.
  
  They should get Targeted

Lower your price gouged menu prices. I quit them a few years ago. I eat out about twice a month now.
It certainly isn't going to be their nasty tasting cardboard food.

I'm in need of a meme involving a certain type of feline and the regrettable mutilation of faces, but it escapes me at present. Any assistance would be gratefully appreciate. Thank you kindly beforehand.
- Eye-gouging cougars? Lip-nibbling jaguars? Cheek scratching Pallas's cat? meowth? What're you getting at?
  
  Mountain lions devoured my visage?
- I’m sorry Jon?
  No, I don’t think that’s it.
- No self-respecting leopard would deign to eat McDonald's.

Then maybe the place that sells plastic food shouldn't have let this felon rapist use one of their restaurants for a photo op.

Anywhere but the mirror, huh? Please collapse, McDonald's.

As I understand it, mcd had already done so many other cost cutting tactics to increase profits for their masters, the SHAREHOLDERS. The corporate business model demands increases EVERY quarter. This kind of continuous infinite profit growth just doesn't make sense in real life. They may have exhausted all other options to increase profit for their shareholders beside price increases. They have no one to blame but themselves. They could stand up to their shareholders and not raise prices, but seems like they're spineless, and now they are pushing up against the edge of what their customers are willing to pay. I don't know how long they can keep this up.
- Growth for the sake of growth is literally cancer.

Never mind that they’ve been seeing a sales decline for longer than just the past 100 days, and their sales declines aren’t limited to just the US.
Here in Australia their burgers have gotten so expensive, and so small - you’d be forgiven for confusing it with one of those gummy burger packets!
At least Hungry Jacks (our version of Burger King) has largely still maintained the same size; the Whopper offers infinitely more value and the Angry variant (spicy fried onions and jalapeños) kicks ass!

if only there had been warning signs

Burger king in the Whitehouse for the next leader summit then
- Burger King
  Careful, Trump might take that as a threat to his singular power
  
  From Hark a Vagrant!
- Whitehouse already has a clown I guess. More than one actually.

I can’t afford to eat at McDonald’s, even if I wanted to.
- You aren't missing anything.

Womp womp

Well, at least some good has come from Trump's brainless vandalism.

Lol sure, I don't mind companies blaming trump. But what about the decreasing sales before 2025?
Does the effects of tariffs travel backwards through time? 🤔
(Mcdonalds is so bad, you might as well just get food from your local Chinese restaurant, which cost about the same and is much healthier)
- Bidens McDonald's
  
  McBDS

It’s been well over a decade since I have eaten there. I’d have to be desperate as fuck to ever eat there, like being in the middle of no where and mcd is the only place around.

If only we could've known ahead of time

Quit supporting genocide and fascism, then we'll talk

Best headline photo they could have picked

Buying fast food is humiliating for customers and employees.
It should be seen as a last resort for emergencies only, not people's main way to sustain themselves.

how about: the price of everything has been drastically going up while income has not, so instead of spending $20 for a meal at McDon's, they're buying a dozen eggs?

Nothing to do with feeding genocidal maniacs and boasting about it? Pretty sure that helped the boycott
- Yeah, but we're not going to hear that tale from imperial media.
  https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2024/01/24828/mcdonalds-profit-plummets-amid-pro-palestine-boycott-in-middle-east/

Their garbage food and sky high prices, and severe lack of quality operations probably did more damage.

Would you like fries with your uncertainty?

Maybe they should introduce the new Executive Faceburger to their menu.
Get allthe leopards to start eating there.

While I’m sure it really is bad, worse sales since Covid doesn’t really sound that bad. That’s an incredibly low bar and not that long ago.

You get what you fucking deserve.

A few years ago I got drive through that wasn't put together properly. They dumped all the stuff into the box. Could have gotten a proper restaurant dining experience for the same price.
McDonalds has gone so far out of touch with what they are as a business.

Sorry, I've been eating better for my health.

McDonald's and other fast food burger chains mostly exist to me for when I'm craving fries and download the app and get some deal where it's like buy the smallest drink and get free large fries. They get like $2 about every 6 months from me

Boycott this fascist, carnist, genocidal filth.
Carnism <---> Fascism.