Let’s talk about Monday’s DoorDash stunt at the White House — because it managed to backfire in almost every way imaginable, and the fallout just keeps growing.

The Setup

The White House arranged for Sharon Simmons, a 58-year-old DoorDash driver from Arkansas, to deliver McDonald’s to the Oval Office as a feel-good photo op promoting the “No Tax on Tips” provision Trump signed last summer as part of his “One Big Beautiful Bill.” Trump then tipped her — after a reporter asked if the White House was a good tipper — with a $100 bill. He told the watching press with a straight face, “This doesn’t look staged, does it?”

It did. Enormously.

The Golden Age Problem

Here’s the central irony nobody in that room addressed: if America is truly experiencing what Trump keeps calling a “golden age,” why are we supposed to be celebrating a grandmother still working gig jobs to help cover her husband’s cancer treatments? Simmons has completed over 14,000 DoorDash deliveries since 2022, relying on the work’s flexibility to help care for her husband, who was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer in early 2025. That’s not a golden age. That’s a person grinding through a broken system — the same broken healthcare system Trump has promised to fix with a “big, beautiful plan” for over a decade and has never once produced.

The Math Doesn’t Add Up

The White House promoted Simmons as saving “$11,000” thanks to the no-tax-on-tips policy. But in three different interviews on Monday, Simmons gave three different numbers. She told Fox News Digital she was “probably going to be saving about $3,000 to $4,000.” In another Fox interview, she said half her income came from tips. And at the White House, she said she made about $11,000 in tips — which would make her total income roughly $22,000, a salary so low that the standard deduction would be what helped her most, not Trump’s policy. The numbers simply don’t work. And the White House — in a fitting touch — incorrectly labeled the dollar figure a “refund” in its own materials.

The Staged Part Nobody’s Denying

Footage surfaced of Simmons testifying at a House Ways and Means Committee field hearing in Nevada in July 2025, speaking publicly in support of the very same policy she was “spontaneously” celebrating at the White House. Republican Rep. David Kustoff had posted about hearing from her at that hearing, saying she had shared how the One Big Beautiful Bill would “make a real difference in her life.” She was also flown in from Arkansas for the event — she didn’t just happen to be the local DoorDash driver who showed up. DoorDash confirmed the event was coordinated with the White House. This wasn’t a delivery. It was a production.

The Awkward Exchanges

And even as a production, it failed. Trump tried to get Simmons to weigh in on transgender athletes in women’s sports. She replied, “I really don’t have an opinion on that.” When he pushed, she said, “I’m here about no tax on tips.” He asked if she had voted for him. She responded, “Um, maybe.” Every attempt to turn her into a MAGA moment fell flat in real time, on camera, in front of the press pool.

Newsom Twisted the Knife

Governor Newsom’s press office noted the irony pointedly: “Donald Trump — a convicted felon who has also been found liable for sexual abuse — is ineligible to be a delivery driver on most apps.” And while Trump was handing out $100 bills for the cameras, Newsom’s office also pointed out that beef prices have skyrocketed 21% since Trump took office — a figure confirmed by independent price trackers. That’s the “golden age” showing up at the actual grocery store.

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Meanwhile, the Jesus Photo

During the same event, Trump was asked about his Truth Social post depicting an AI-generated image of himself as a Jesus-like figure — posted on Easter Sunday, the same night his Islamabad peace talks collapsed and he was sitting cageside at a UFC fight.

The image showed Trump in a white robe, placing his hand on a man’s forehead in a healing scene, surrounded by bald eagles, the Statue of Liberty, and fighter jets. The backlash was swift and came from his own base. Riley Gaines posted: “Seriously, I cannot understand why he’d post this. Is he looking for a response? Does he actually think this? Either way, two things are true. 1) A little humility would serve him well. 2) God shall not be mocked.”

After he deleted it, Trump’s explanation was something to behold. He told reporters he thought it was an image of him “as a doctor, making people better,” and that it had “to do with the Red Cross as a Red Cross worker, which we support.” He called the Jesus interpretation “fake news.”

Trump also denied being influenced by Gaines’s criticism, saying “I didn’t listen to Riley Gaines. I’m not a big fan of Riley, actually.” Gaines subsequently walked her criticism back, said the deletion was “amazing,” and offered Trump praise — completing the full cycle of conservative media genuflection in under 24 hours.

Speaker Mike Johnson said he was the one who called Trump and told him to take it down. “I talked to the president about it as soon as I saw it and told him that I don’t think it was being received in the same way he intended it,” Johnson told reporters.

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The Lindsey Graham Sidebar

And in the category of things that never get old: TMZ confronted Senator Lindsey Graham about being photographed at Disney World — the same Disney World Graham has spent years supporting efforts to punish for being “too woke.” Graham, a vocal ally of every anti-Disney culture war broadside the GOP has launched, apparently finds the Magic Kingdom quite enjoyable when the cameras aren’t rolling.

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All of this happened in a single day — a staged DoorDash stunt with math that doesn’t hold up, an AI Jesus image the president claims he thought was a doctor, a Speaker having to call the president to explain why depicting yourself as the Son of God is bad optics, and beef prices that are 21% higher than when this administration took office.

And they wonder why his approval numbers keep dropping.