Does Donald Trump eat fried chicken with a knife and fork or not?

Point: Donald Trump eats fried chicken with a knife and fork.

First of all, let’s get this straight: Donald Trump would totally be the kind of guy to think it’s totally normal to eat his fried chicken with a knife and fork. He even has a history eating hand-foods with cutlery—in 2011, he shared a pizza in New York with Sarah Palin and both of them used a knife and fork. Trump was probably born with a silver knife and fork in his mouth.

The pizza incident is crucial in debunking the idea that the photo is staged. In 2011 Trump was very aware that his use of cutlery was a faux-pas—he even responded to critics in a video, stating:

A lot of people are asking why am I using plastic forks and knives that the pizza parlor gave. Well, I don’t walk around with forks and knives, and frankly, it was very comfortable. Plus, this way you can take the top of the pizza off so you’re not just eating the crust. I like to not eat the crust so we can keep the weight down at least as good as possible.

Trump isn’t one to forget criticism and he is quite aware that if he’s going to stage a “man-of-the-people” photo, he should have been eating the chicken with his hands. What we’re seeing here is a normal shot in the daily life of Donald, who eats his fast food with a knife and fork like the goddamn degenerate that he is. -Clio Chang

Counterpoint: Nope.

Donald Trump doesn’t eat fried chicken with a knife and fork because Donald Trump doesn’t eat fried chicken. This photo is fake. I don’t mean that it’s doctored, just that it’s clearly staged—and that the staging suggests that my man Donald has never in his life been in front of a plate of chicken. Look at him: He’s holding the knife and fork like Homer Simpson. And Trump only grins like that when he’s selling something, another tell. Check out the picture from the Trump Steaks box and you’ll see what I mean.

Back in the spring, Trump claimed to have eaten KFC, though he didn’t have the documentary proof. Here’s what he told Anderson Cooper: “The other night I had Kentucky Fried Chicken. Not the worst thing in the world.” Not the worst thing in the world—just the worst chain fried chicken. But KFC’s relative value is beside the point: “Not the worst thing in the world” is a thing you say if you’ve either just had KFC for the first time, or if you’re lying about having had KFC for the first time. If Trump had been eating KFC for his entire life—and Trump makes a big deal about how into fast food he is—you would not still be on the fence about it at age 70. (Also, you would have at least moved on to Bojangles.)

There’s some evidence that Trump’s McDonald’s fetish is real—this is a subject for another debate, but his tortured explanation for why he likes their food (he leans way too hard into defending McDonald’s very debatable “cleanliness”) tracks with his well-documented germobphobia. But Trump is also leaning into fast food because he thinks it makes him look like a man of the people, which is why he posts fake-ass pictures like this. Donald Trump has never eaten fried chicken. -Alex Shephard