This week I read an article in the Washington Post about the „Trump Burger Disaster“. If it wasn’t so serious it really could be funny. In this post I like to share it with you. First the article from the Washington Post and then a few readers comments I found about it, as well as some pics I added.

President Trump’s extravagant, $3,000, 300-sandwich celebration of Clemson University.

By Philip Bump, Washington Post.
January 15 at 7:30 AM

In an administration overstuffed with bizarre moments and unusual events, Monday night’s celebration of the Clemson University Tigers at the White House nonetheless made a mark.

The Tigers, who won the national college football championship after not having to play my alma mater Ohio State, had the traditional meeting with the president, enjoying remarks from South Carolina’s senators after retiring to the State Dining Room for a meal.

A meal that was made up of fast food from various national chains.

“Because the Democrats refuse to negotiate on border security,” a statement from press secretary Sarah Sanders explained, “much of the residence staff at the White House is furloughed — so the president is personally paying for the event to be catered with some of everyone’s favorite fast foods.”

  Personal paying and hoping for leftovers, right ?

As Trump repeatedly makes clear, it is indeed a lot of food, but perhaps not a lot of food in the context of a hungry college football team. In his comments, he claims that there are 300 burgers in total, which are obviously joined by a number of salads, chicken nuggets and, on a separate table under a heat lamp, fries and pizzas.

It raises a perhaps obvious question: Exactly how much did all this cost the president?

The way to figure that out is straightforward: Figure out how much food there actually was and multiply that by the cost. Or, it would be straightforward, if counting hamburgers were as easy as it seems in theory.

So here’s the spread on the main table as it looked prior to the players’ entrance. Once they were in the room, of course, those various hamburgers and (probably to a lesser extent, salads) were quickly plucked from the table.

Fast food is shown in the State Dinning Room of the White House. (Brad Mills/USA TODAY Sports)

Others were picked up by waiters in the room and distributed on platters in the style of servers at an elegant cocktail party. “Another Big Mac, sir? Please, help yourself.”

After considering far more wire photos and social media posts than you might expect, we’re pleased to report that the arrangement in the room looked like this. (Not shown: The candelabra.) There were sandwiches and pizzas from McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s and Domino’s.

Using those same photographic sources, we then endeavored to tally how many of each item existed at the outset.

There were a few complicating factors with this that bear mentioning. First, Wendy’s, unlike McDonald’s, makes it a bit tricky to determine what type of burger is contained in a particular package. The calculations below assume that the Wendy’s burgers are all doubles, that the chicken sandwiches are Wendy’s spicy chicken and that the salads are the Southwest (McDonald’s) and full BBQ Ranch Chicken (Wendy’s). The pizzas we figured were Domino’s Favorite Feast.

            If one want’s to know where Trump get his ideas from, here the answer. From other dictators, he admires so much, of course. Just a bit better, instead plastic bowls „White House“ serves on silver !! How decadent !!

Another problem is that stacking flat hamburgers makes counting hard, as does obscured views of the various piles. So below, our estimates of the number of each item and, thanks to the aptly named FastFoodMenuPrices.com, an estimate of the cost of each item.

And, finally, the White House had a unique system for distributing the french fries. The fries, which appeared to be from McDonald’s, given the accompanying ketchup packets, were transferred into White-House-branded cups, making it hard to determine how many there were at the outset. (In his taped remarks, above, Trump only revealed that there were “many, many fries.”) We figured an estimate of 200 large fries was about right.

         Yeah yeah, many many fries !

What a dopey guy. Can’t write „hamburger“ and can’t count. Shame on him!

 * estimated

The grand total? According to our count, Trump spent about $2,911.44 on feeding the team. A sixth of that is the fries alone, though, so take with a grain of salt. (The fries; also the estimate.) Half the cost was incurred at McDonald’s alone.

  Fantastic, light some candles to get it a bit warm in the ballroom. How barmy is this guy’s behavior who claims to be the leader of the largest economy in the world ?

Update: Some people have noted that the McDonald’s sandwiches and nuggets would be on the 2-for-$5 menu. If so, the total drops to $2,437.11. It also explains why there are so many more McDonald’s products than Burger King.

This total includes 319 sandwiches, 177 of which were hamburgers. Perhaps Trump’s “300” hamburgers figure referred to all of the sandwiches — or perhaps they weren’t all put out at the outset. (The low number of Whoppers and pizzas certainly does suggest that some food may have been held in reserve.) That the staff who were passing around Wendy’s on serving trays took those sandwiches directly from the table, however, seems to suggest that what you see in the photos was what was purchased.

Was it indeed enough food? We didn’t see photos of the aftermath, so we don’t know exactly what might have been leftover. But we do know that the team alone is made up of 120 players, weighing over 27,500 pounds combined. So, the average Clemson player weighs about 230 pounds.

Thanks to the also-aptly-named CalorieKing, we can also determine how many calories were waiting in that room: About 310,000 — excluding sauces and dressing. The spread also made up somewhere around 16,000 grams of fat. In other words, each player could eat about 2,600 calories of food assuming our counts and estimates above are correct. Football players apparently need about 50 calories for every 2.2 pounds each day, meaning the spread covered about half the team’s necessary caloric intake for the day.

Hopefully, though, they left some food for their coaches and other attendees.

Cold fast food in a cold room. People wearing coats and woolen scarfs. What else can one expect from a „cold dickhead“ with his mask.  What a humiliating showdown.

Peoples Voices.

„Bruh, we need to open the government ASAP. Straight dollar menu items being served at the #WhiteHouse. I’ve been saying for the last 2-3 years, no Hollywood script can come close to how entertaining this administration has been.“

„What a complete disgrace to the nation. Can you imagine being invited to the White House and being served McDonalds. What an insult! What a disgrace!“

„Trump serves Clemson McDonalds. They got dressed up and went to White House and get served fast food. How insulting.“

  Dressed up and hungry.

„He’s a national embarrassment. DC has AMAZING restaurants that are struggling during the shutdown. They could have been called in to cater for these kids. Trump feeding the Clemson Tigers a bunch of cold fast food is so… Trump.“

“Many people say I have the best chefs/staff in the White House, ever, in history. In fact, Abe Lincoln just called me and told me that, and he don’t lie — said Trump !“

„The man is a billionaire. We’re supposed to be impressed he thought athletes should be honored with fast food? He couldn’t spring for actual catering? Not impressed. I’m sure Putin would’ve helped him out if he needed more cash.“

„Interesting, if Trump has to pay, he buys McDonalds, if he has tax payers pay, for instance his parties at Mar a Largo and his golf clubs, he has the best food money can buy like Kobe beef and lobster. Bottles of water for 10 bucks.“

  A ballroom dinner setup – during good old times.

„I seriously don’t understand this. Was he trying to be funny? Or disrespectful, or did his warped mind actually think this was appropriate?“

„Gee! #Trump showing his generous side because he paid for cold fast-food all by himself. @realDonaldTrump is such a cheap bastard with his fancy hotel down the street that could have catered. What is wrong with him?“

„If you asked an 8 year old what is the first thing they would do if elected President; this is it! Says it all really!“

      The „8 year old“ president of the USA.   The world is laughing about a disgrace like him.

„This is a total embarrassment. Can you Imagine putting on your best suit to attend a White House dinner and walking into cold McDonalds?“

„I reckon a PR guy came up with the concept. Fast food, cold (topcoats), candles (no electricity). Gov shutdown but Pres battles on. What he didn’t expect was for the Pres to embrace it and boast about it!“

„On Tuesday morning, the number grew from 1,000 hamburgers to “over 1,000 hamberders,” which Trump claimed he paid for himself. He said it was all gone within an hour, which, again, means that each player would have had to have eaten over seven hamburgers, not to mention the other offerings.“

  That’s all they served for about 140 people !! What a liar, paying for 1000 burgers ! True is that it is cold in the White House. People have to wear a coat !!

Trump the Liar.

„Great being with the National Champion Clemson Tigers last night at the White House. Because of the Shutdown I served them massive amounts of Fast Food (I paid), over 1000 hamberders etc. Within one hour, it was all gone. Great guys and big eaters!“
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 15, 2019.

„This is all very stupid, of course, but it’s a good example of how casually Trump lies. He does not strategically pick and choose where he is going to exaggerate the truth or which numbers he’s going to inflate. He just does it. It’s comes as naturally to the president as breathing. Or as scarfing down a Big Mac.“

  „1000 hamberders“ – yeah – what a bullshitter !!