Kamala Harris in McDonald’s uniform photo has been edited

A viral photo circulating on social media appears to show US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in a uniform for the fast food chain McDonald’s.

But this image has been edited—the original photo features someone else wearing the uniform. A reverse image search using the search engine TinEye shows the original photo was taken from a website set up in memory of a Canadian researcher named Suzanne Bernier who died in 2007. 

Full Fact was not able to find a photo of Kamala Harris that may have been used for the edit.

Some posts have shared the edited image with overlaid text saying: “Case closed”, which appears to relate to comments made by Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, disputing Ms Harris’s claim she worked at the chain over 40 years ago. 

While visiting a McDonald’s restaurant on 20 October, Mr Trump said: “I’ve always wanted to work at McDonald’s but I never did. I’m running against someone that said she did but it turned out to be a totally phoney story”.

Ms Harris’s campaign told the BBC that the vice president had worked on the cash register, ice cream machine and fry machine at a McDonald's on Central Avenue in Alameda, California, in the summer of 1983. 

Neither Ms Harris nor Mr Trump have provided evidence for their claims. 

McDonald’s reportedly said in an internal memo confirmed by the Wall Street Journal that the company and its franchisees didn’t have records for all positions dating back to the early 80s. 

We’ve written about several other examples of edited images of Ms Harris, including those falsely appearing to show her with Jeffrey Epstein and Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs. It’s important to consider whether an image actually shows what you think it does before sharing it online—our guide to spotting misleading images can help you do this.

You can find more of our work debunking claims relating to US politics on our website.