Three days after President Donald Trump opened the Oval Office door to a DoorDash driver carrying two bags of McDonald’s — a moment the White House social media account captioned “LOVIN’ IT!” and DoorDash spent two days defending against paid-actor accusations — Trump stood at a Tax Day roundtable in Las Vegas on Thursday afternoon and dismissed the whole thing as “a little tacky.”
“A little tiny embarrassing”
The Las Vegas event, held at the AC Hotel at Symphony Park downtown, was billed as the centerpiece of the White House’s “Tax Week” messaging — a roundtable with police officers, a barber, a firefighter, and a casino pit supervisor, each invited to describe the personal impact of Trump’s “No Tax on Tips” and “No Tax on Overtime” policies. Gas prices in the city had averaged $5 a gallon by Thursday, up 28% from a year earlier, eating into the take-home gains from the policies Trump was promoting.
Trump opened by describing meeting “a wonderful woman” named Sharon Simmons, a grandmother driving DoorDash to help cover her husband’s cancer treatment. He walked the room through Monday’s Oval Office delivery — Simmons knocking on the door in a red “DoorDash Grandma” T-shirt, two bags of McDonald’s in hand.
Then he broke from the prepared remarks.
Trump on DoorDash grandma Sharon Simmons’s delivery to the White House: “To be honest, it was a little tacky” pic.twitter.com/ID8skObWip
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 17, 2026
“To be honest, it was a little tacky,” Trump said. He grouped the Oval Office delivery with his 2024 campaign stops at a McDonald’s drive-thru window and in a garbage truck — stunts his team had staged during the race against Kamala Harris.
“We do these things in politics,” he told the Vegas crowd. “They’re a little embarrassing. They’re a little tiny embarrassing.”
Trump did not specify which part crossed into tacky — the timing, the T-shirt, or his own question to reporters Monday about whether the delivery looked staged.
Three days of defense before Thursday’s remarks
The tacky line arrived at the end of a 72-hour cycle of surrogates and corporate spokespeople framing the Monday event as authentic.
The White House X account had posted photos of the delivery captioned “LOVIN’ IT!” DoorDash’s head of public affairs, Julian Crowley, spent two days replying to X users — and to X’s AI chatbot, Grok, which had falsely claimed there were two different women named Sharon who both drove for DoorDash — pushing back on claims that Simmons was a paid actor or Republican plant. Crowley wrote that calling Simmons a prop was “totally wrong and off base.”
LOVIN’ IT! President Trump receives the first ever DoorDash delivery to the Oval Office highlighting No Tax on Tips, which helps millions keep the money they earn. 🍔🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/H99YfiBVug
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) April 13, 2026
Simmons went on Fox & Friends on Tuesday morning to deny she was an actress. “I am not a paid actor,” she told the hosts.
House Ways and Means Committee Democrats posted that a grandmother should not have to rely on DoorDash tips to offset rising healthcare costs. Democratic strategist Max Burns wrote on X that the image captured the Trump era — a grandmother delivering fast food while the president’s office was trimmed in gold.
The defensive push followed reporting that Simmons was not a first-time advocate. She had testified in support of the “No Tax on Tips” policy before the House Ways and Means Committee at a field hearing in Las Vegas on July 25, 2025, telling the committee she planned to use the savings for her husband’s follow-up medical visits and travel to see her grandchildren in Missouri.
In Vegas on Thursday, Trump described Simmons’ $11,000 in savings as money “she had no idea was coming.”
DoorDash confirmed after Monday’s event that Simmons’ appearance had been scheduled weeks in advance as part of a planned anniversary campaign. She had moved from Nevada to Arkansas in late 2025.
“So we got to keep doing them”
Trump did not walk back the tacky comment. He used it to justify more.
“We do them, and you win by landslides,” he told the Las Vegas room, linking the Oval Office delivery, the 2024 McDonald’s shift, and the garbage truck ride as stunts that had worked. “So we got to keep doing them.”
He returned to Simmons before moving on. The delivery, he said, turned out to be “really great.”
Simmons’ family has continued raising money for her husband’s cancer care through a GoFundMe set up by her son-in-law, who has described the couple as having run through their savings on treatment.
DoorDash has not publicly responded to Trump’s Vegas remarks. As of Thursday evening, the White House social media accounts still featured the “LOVIN’ IT!” post from Monday, alongside photos of Simmons handing the president his McDonald’s bags outside the Oval Office door he had just told a Vegas audience was the backdrop for something tacky.
