Trump Taunted Over Prison, McDonald’s by ‘Tiger King’ Star Joe Exotic

Former President Donald Trump, who could be facing a future behind bars, is being encouraged to load up on McDonald’s by Joe Exotic, the Tiger King star and imprisoned fellow 2024 presidential candidate.

Exotic, whose legal name is Joseph Allen Maldonado, is serving out a 21-year prison sentence in Texas following a 2019 conviction on charges that included hiring hitmen to kill wildlife activist Carole Baskin. After failing to secure a pardon from Trump during his presidency, Exotic has become an outspoken critic of the ex-president.

In April, Exotic complained that he had been “screwed” over by Trump and alleged that his administration had jailed him as part of “an agenda to stop you from owning a tiger and petting a baby tiger.” The former Netflix star announced his own bid for the presidency one month earlier, pointing out that there were no laws to prevent a campaign from prison.

Exotic on Friday offered some culinary advice for Trump, a well-known aficionado of fast food, in the event that he also becomes an inmate. Trump’s federal indictment was unsealed on the same day, accusing the former president of 37 felony counts that carry a possible maximum prison sentence of 100 years.

“@realDonaldTrump you need to enjoy those Big Mac’s while you can because the food sucks a** in here unless we get a guard or a drone to bring you some McDonalds in here,” tweeted Exotic. “#prisonfoodsucks”

“Hey @realDonaldTrump,” Exotic said in another tweet that featured a doctored image of the ex-president and himself behind bars with a McDonald’s restaurant on the other side. “Just wait, it will seem a world away. #JoeExotic2024”

Newsweek has reached out via email to the office of Trump for comment.

Trump’s long love affair with McDonald’s has been well documented. Journalist Michael Wolff wrote that Trump “liked to eat at McDonald’s” in part due to a “longtime fear of being poisoned” by other food in his 2018 book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.

During a 1990 trip to Japan, Trump purportedly demanded McDonald’s fare after complaining that he was “not going to eat any f****** raw fish,” according to the book Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump.

While visiting a McDonald’s restaurant in East Palestine, Ohio, this year, Trump was captured on video telling employees that he knew what was on the menu “better” than “anybody in here.”

The former president, who has also been indicted on 34 state felony charges of falsifying business records in New York, denies any criminal wrongdoing. He says that all of his legal difficulties have been part of “the greatest witch hunt of all time,” while accusing President Joe Biden and the Department of Justice of being “corrupt” instead.