The One Upgrade President Trump Would Make To McDonald's Filet-O-Fish

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Donald Trump's love for McDonald's is no secret. In addition to the fast food titan supplying a significant share of his diet and, by extension, the diet of subordinates and visitors around him, the Golden Arches have appeared in various other aspects of his public life. A McDonald's advertisement from 2002 closes on a bizarrely prescient note with Trump and Grimace (the chain's purple blob-like mascot) staring out of a Trump tower window and the former saying, "Together, Grimace, we could own this town." Two decades and one presidential term later, we find Trump working the fryer and serving fries to handpicked customers on his campaign trail. The president has only had good things to say about McDonald's, so it was a little surprising when he had notes for the Filet-O-Fish, one of his most-oft-ordered burgers. "You could do a little more tartar sauce, though, please. Seriously," Trump said while speaking at the McDonald's Impact Summit in Washington, D.C.

The request for more sauce in the Filet-O-Fish could be one of Trump's most successful bipartisan ideas yet. Fans of the iconic fish sandwich have regularly brought up the paltry smudge of tartar that it comes with. "In my years of experience, three out of four do not have enough tartar sauce," said u/WhiteNoyes on Reddit. Some have felt similarly shortchanged by Filet-O-Fish's half slice of cheese. Fortunately, you can always ask for more sauce on the burger (like Trump does) or get a bigger Filet-O-Fish by ordering an extra patty. In fact, Trump makes mods to some of his other favorite McDonald's orders as well.

From his years of chowing down on McDonald's, you'd be right in guessing that Donald Trump has his order down pat. Unsurprisingly, he's also been known to boast to McDonald's employees that he is more familiar with the menu than they are. It's not often that Trump places his own order, though. During his first presidential campaign, Trump's longtime aide, who later became head of Oval Office operations, Keith Schiller, was known to pick up Egg McMuffins for his boss.

Over the years, Trump has oscillated between the quarter-pounder with cheese, ordered with extra ketchup and no pickles, and the Big Mac, as his burger of choice. He seemed to prefer the quarter-pounder during his campaign in 2016 and his first term in the White House. However, in 2020, while recovering from COVID-19, he asked for a Big Mac — a sign that his son-in-law Jared Kushner described in his memoir "Breaking History" as confirmation that Trump was getting better. 

It's worth pointing out that the burgers are usually ordered in multiples, along with a side of fries and a milkshake. To mitigate the calories, Trump's former campaign manager clarified at one point that the president removes the buns from some of his burgers. The one menu item that has remained as consistent as Diet Coke for Trump is the Filet-O-Fish. As for the sauce shortfall, perhaps the White House kitchen could use a McDonald's tartar sauce copycat recipe to upgrade the president's prized Filet-O-Fish sandwiches.