Former President Donald Trump made a surprise appearance at an Atlanta, Georgia, Chick-fil-A on Wednesday and footage from the pitstop is getting a lot of attention.
The presumptive GOP nominee shared a sweet moment with the staff while placing an order for 30 milkshakes, but it is an exchange with a Black woman in the restaurant that is going viral.
On Wednesday’s show, Megyn was joined by Victor Davis Hanson, author of The End of Everything, to discuss why the moment was so powerful for Trump and what it says about the 2024 electorate.
Trump Stumps at Chick-fil-A
Trump’s deputy director of communications, Margo Martin, took to X on Wednesday to share a video of the former president interacting with the staff and patrons at a Chick-fil-A in the Atlanta area. He was in the Peach State for a fundraiser.
“President Trump is out on the campaign trail before they send him to prison,” Megyn quipped. “That is the goal of at least three prosecutors in Atlanta, Jack Smith in two different jurisdictions, and, next week, Alvin Bragg in New York.”
In the first clip, Trump is seen at the counter placing an order for “30 milkshakes and also some chicken” so he “could take care of the customers.” He asked the staff, which was predominantly made up of Black women, if business was good and they “were making a lot of money,” to which they enthusiastically replied “yes.”
Megyn said it’s a humanizing moment for the forty-fifth president. “It’s a nice clip,” she said. “I think everyone there was Black… and they were not recoiling in fear or horror at this racist president who’s been portrayed nonstop that way by the media and in Atlanta by people like [Fulton County District Attorney] Fani Willis.”
Instead, Megyn noted “he got a hero’s welcome,” particularly from one of the customers who had gathered. Martin posted a second video in which a Black woman in the crowd tells the former president: “I don’t care what the media tells you, Mr. Trump, we support you!”
He then offers the woman a hug and poses for a picture. “This is what is special about Trump,” Megyn said. “He gets out there with the people and he does stuff like this that [President Joe] Biden is literally incapable of doing. That’s magic for him.”
A Winning Strategy?
Hanson believes this interaction could be indicative of a larger shift in the electorate come November. “That’s why I’m a little more confident because I think this is starting to look more like 2016 than 2020,” he said. “I think the left was surprised in 2016, so they prepared in 2020 and the right was surprised. And I think now they’re both on level ground and that’s going to help Trump.”
He believes at least a portion of minority voters will support Republicans this election cycle. “I think a lot of the minority community is starting to follow the trends of the white working class, who got so tired of being lectured to by these bicoastal elites that they rebelled,” Hanson explained. “Everybody thought that would never happen with the Latino and Black [vote]… but I think we’re starting to see a lot of people say, ‘I want inexpensive rent. I want to end expensive insurance. I want to be able to afford food and gas.'”
Couple that with the fact that, in Hanson’s view, the Black community has not “warmed” to President Joe Biden, and he sees an opportunity for Trump and the GOP. “I think he could really break open the election in the late summer and win the House and Senate,” he said. “He’s going to be outspent… he’s going to have all the institutions against him, but if he sticks to the agenda and can control what he says, there’s a lot of people… out there who say, ‘Give me a reason to vote for you because I do not want what is going on to continue.'”
With that in mind, Megyn laid out what could be a winning strategy for Trump. “Don’t say too much, thumbs up on the Chick-fil-A visits, fight fire with fire on the abortion debate… and keep driving home the message on the economy and the border,” she concluded. “Let the Dems focus obsessively on DEI, which we’ve seen time after time is a loser for them.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Hanson by tuning in to episode 762 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.