President Donald Trump shared a bizarre video this week about "revenge" in a McDonald’s drive-thru, offering an unintentionally perfect snapshot of his online habits and the cultural moment they reflect.
So far this week, Trump has taken to his platform Truth Social to complain about Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime show and threaten ice hockey in Canada (?) if the nation does a trade deal with China.
On Wednesday, he also shared a video of prominent evangelical pastor Chuck Swindoll reading a story that pretends to celebrate kindness before revealing itself as a petty punishment fantasy.
McDonald's drive-thru revenge
"I know I shouldn't have done this. I am 83 years old," Swindoll reads from his stage. "I was in the McDonald's drive-thru this morning. The young lady behind me leaned on her horn and started mouthing some ugly things because I was taking too long to place my order. So, when I got to the first window, I paid for her order along with my own."
As the story goes, the woman mouths "thank you" from her place in line behind the narrator, "probably feeling embarrassed that I had repaid her rudeness with kindness." And for just a moment, it seems as if this is a story touting the importance of allegedly Christian values such as having grace for others.
In reality, it demonstrates a much more familiar type of modern-day Christian value—sticking it to people you don't like.
"When I got to the second window, I showed the server both receipts and I took her food, too. Now she has to go back to the end of the queue and start all over again. Don't blow your horn at old people. We've been around for a long time," Swindoll concludes, before adding a bit of commentary of his own: "Is that good, or what?"
Don’t honk your horn at me. ?
— CeCe (@cecegkh) February 1, 2026
I have extra money to spend and nowhere I need to be! ?
This is absolutely something I would do. ?
~however, I would give the extra food to someone who needed it. pic.twitter.com/ti4omI4qrB
Videos of the pastor reading this story from his platform have been circulating for at least the last two years. It's not immediately clear where it originates, or if it's even a real story, although Swindoll said at the time he had a friend send it to him.
But there are a couple of aspects at play here worth noting.
The first is pretty obvious—Christians laughing at causing harm to others they feel have been rude to them is basically the open evangelical playbook in the Trump era. It isn't surprising that he would share something so pointless under the guise of being a funny story.
On top of that, the Daily Beast pointed out that one of the two times Trump shared the video today, he did so with commentary from an "AI slop account" that he has promoted multiple times.
Trump's social media rampages are enough of a threat to U.S. credibility and relations with other countries that the president sharing stupid videos and promoting AI engagement bait feels almost refreshing.
But in a functioning version of this country, we would be asking ourselves, "Why is the leader of the free world mindlessly scrolling social media and reposting this useless crap?"
Instead, we have to be grateful he's spending time on laughing about petty revenge stories rather than Truth-ing us into yet another war over his own paltry grievances. For now.
The internet is chaotic—but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s newsletter here.
