KC McDonald’s owner apologizes after celebrating ‘epic’ time at Jan. 6 Trump rally
The owner of several local McDonald’s restaurants is apologizing for comments he made after attending former President Donald Trump’s Jan. 6 rally in Washington, D.C.
Jim Wagy has faced local and national backlash for attending the event that preceded the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol. While the owner of eight local McDonald’s restaurants insists he was nowhere near the violence, he previously celebrated the day as “an epic adventure.”
A photo circulating on Facebook showed him standing near the Washington Monument with Luke Weese, a Lenexa pastor who has come under fire from members of his City Center Church for attending the rally.
On Facebook, Wagy said he took a 21-hour bus ride to Washington “to peacefully protest election fraud.”
“It was a HISTORICAL DAY in our history! I’m glad that I didn’t miss it!!!” he wrote on his Facebook account, which has since been deleted.
He also repeated the debunked theory that groups like Black Lives Matter or Antifa, rather than Trump supporters, were to blame for the violence. An Associated Press review of more than 120 individuals facing charges or identified in images at the riot showed the group was overwhelmingly made up of longtime Trump backers.
After becoming the subject of a Business Insider story, Wagy has been condemned by employees, customers and the McDonald’s corporate office. His photo has been passed around online and many are calling for a boycott of his Kansas City-area fast-food restaurants.
“I’ll hold my own quiet protest and not eat at them,” one resident wrote on Facebook.
Wagy did not return calls or emails, but issued a statement on Jan. 20 through a spokesman. In the statement, he reiterated that he was not part of the mob that attacked the Capitol, who he said should face prosecution.
“I traveled more than 20 hours each way to Washington D.C. to see the President speak in person for the first time in my life, to pray with others and to be there peacefully,” he said. “That was the sole intent of my trip. I did not go near the Capitol building or its steps.”
In a Facebook Live video shared with The Star, Wagy told his followers that he was unsure what was taking place around the time of the riot.
“They’re saying patriots are taking the Capitol. I just did not see any violent people. But I don’t know, man, I don’t know what’s going on,” he said in the video. “I don’t know what anybody’s going to do going into the Capitol, except get shot. They do have Capitol police.”
His phone dinged with the alert that a curfew had been imposed on the city. And as the crowd grew denser and more sirens were heard, it appeared he never made it to the building.
“What a historical event, like it or love it, hate it, whatever, this is a historical event,” he said on the video. “One I’ll never forget. And I’m glad to be a part of. I had a great time.”
Wagy has since deleted his Jan. 6 posts. But screenshots show he shared it the evening of Jan. 6, hours after an angry mob stormed the heart of American democracy.
But in his statement, Wagy said he was not fully aware of the severity of the riot. In his apology, he said he has learned from the experience.
“I apologize for, and sincerely regret, the comments I made. At the time of my posts, I did not understand the totality of the devastation caused by the terrible attack on the Capitol,” he said. “What happened inside the building was tragic, and goes against everything I stand for personally, as a business owner, and as an active and welcoming member of my community.”
Wagy became a McDonald’s franchisee on April 1, 1991, when he purchased a Gladstone store from his parents. His Jim’s Management Co. owns and operates eight restaurants, primarily in Kansas City’s Northland and Maryville, Missouri.
Wagy represents only a small slice of the McDonald’s local footprint: More than 25 franchisees run some 130 restaurants across the Kansas City area.
But he is a well-known figure in the local business community.
Over the summer, Maryville city officials awarded him with a Key to the City, the first time the honor had been given in several decades, according to the Maryville Forum. In December, the board of aldermen in Platte City named Jim’s Management as the Platte City Business of the Year.
In his previous role as president of a cooperative of Midwest McDonald’s operators, he worked with organizations like the Kansas City Chiefs to raise money for the Ronald McDonald House. His father, Lele Wagy, is credited for helping bring the Ronald McDonald House to Kansas City.
As a franchisee, Wagy is not an employee of McDonald’s, but the world’s largest hamburger chain did denounce his rhetoric.
“We found these social media posts particularly troubling and offensive to so many who wear the McDonald’s uniform,” the corporation said in a statement. “We mean it when we say inclusion is a core value, and we’re looking into this very closely.”
McDonald’s officials did not answer questions about what type of recourse, if any, the Chicago-based company may have with an independent operator like Wagy.
In a statement, the National Franchisee Leadership Alliance, which represents all U.S. franchisees of McDonald’s, called Jan. 6 “a dark day in our nation’s history and not one to be celebrated.”
In May, Wagy received praise as he converted his Gladstone training center into a “McPantry” to provide free food and toiletries for employees who were struggling through the pandemic.
Those sorts of efforts endeared him to Bridget Hughes, 30, who works at one of Wagy’s restaurants in North Kansas City. But she has come to view him as a complicit player in the country’s racial division and economic inequality.
“It really shows us what type of people we’re working for,” she told The Star. “There were people at the same rally who are proud to claim they are white supremacists. So for you to stand with these people, when your employees are disproportionately African American people, what you’re really saying to your employees is you don’t care about them.
“Thousands of people are enraged to know someone who is running stores for the second largest employer in the country is standing with people who are attacking everything this country is built on.”
Hughes is a member of Stand up KC, the local chapter of Fight for 15, a national labor organization pushing for a $15 minimum wage. As recently as Friday, that group rallied with Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas at a separate McDonald’s store, calling for a higher federal minimum wage.
A mother of three, Hughes said she earns $13 an hour and her husband works a low-wage job. She has been fighting for a living wage for the past seven years, as she struggles to afford rent and feed her family.
She said she has never met Wagy. While she first thought he was a good guy, she’s since come to view his employee food pantry as a stark admission that he doesn’t pay people enough to survive.
“And then to find out my franchise owner, who pays me so low I can’t even feed my family, is standing up with people who attacked the Capitol the way they did, it basically says our voices don’t matter,” she said. “That’s an attack on me. It’s an attack on democracy.”
This story was originally published January 21, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
