Fox & Friends coverage of Donald Trump campaign stunt at McDonald's

Research/Study Research/Study

Fox News gave nearly 500 times more coverage to McDonald’s stunt than Trump's threats to Social Security

Trump's tax, trade, and deportation policies could deplete the Social Security Trust Fund by 2031, resulting in huge benefit cuts for seniors

Written by Craig Harrington

Research contributions from Tyler Monroe & Noah Dowe

Published

Fox News gave Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign stunt at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania nearly 500 times more coverage than it gave to a recent analysis demonstrating how his economic agenda jeopardizes the current and future solvency of Social Security and could result in massive benefit cuts for American seniors.

In total, while Fox spent 2 hours and 4 minutes from October 21 through noon today touting Trump's McDonald's stunt, the network devoted just 15 seconds over the same time period to discussing a report showing Trump's policies would make the Social Security Trust Fund insolvent years earlier than expected.

  • On October 21, the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget released an analysis of how Trump’s proposed economic agenda imperils the Social Security Trust Fund by disrupting the broader economy and cutting off key sources of tax revenue. With less revenue coming in, and from fewer sources, the Social Security Trust Fund could deplete its surplus as soon as 2031, which would initiate massive benefit cuts (averaging 33% across the board) for current beneficiaries.

    This stunning news would surely be of interest to the Fox News audience (where the average viewer is 69 years old), but the Trump-aligned network almost completely ignored the report in the 24 hours after its release.

    In fact, Fox News mentioned the story just once — a mere 15 seconds of total coverage.

    By comparison, Fox News has dedicated nearly 500 times as much coverage — nearly 2 hours and 4 minutes of programming — during the same time period to fawning and often celebratory coverage of Trump’s brief October 20 appearance at a McDonald’s in Feasterville, Pennsylvania, where he pretended to work in the kitchen and drive-thru during a scripted campaign photo op.

    Methodology

    Media Matters searched transcripts in the SnapStream video database for all original programming on Fox News Channel for any of the terms “Social Security,” or “Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget,” or any variation of the word “insolvent,” within close proximity of either of the terms “Trump” or “former president” from October 21, 2024, when the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget published its report stating that Trump's campaign proposals would dramatically worsen Social Security's finances, through noon on October 22, 2024.

    We also searched transcripts in the SnapStream video database for all original programming on Fox News Channel for any of the terms “Feasterville,” or any variations of “McDonalds,” or “fries,” within close proximity of either of the terms “Trump” or “former president,” during the same time period.

    We timed segments, which we defined as instances when either Trump's McDonald's campaign stunt, or a report that his economic plans would drain social security were the stated topic of discussion or when we found significant discussion of either story. We defined significant discussion as instances when two or more speakers in a multitopic segment discussed either story with one another.

    We also timed mentions, when a single speaker in a segment on another topic mentioned either Trump's McDonald's campaign stunt, or a report that his economic plans would drain social security without another speaker engaging with the comment and teasers, which we defined as instances when the anchor or host promoted a segment about either story scheduled to air later in the broadcast.