DoorDash’s top public affairs official did what no top public affairs official should do and made himself the story after the company’s staged McDonald’s delivery to Donald Trump went awry.
The firm’s head of public affairs, Julian Crowley, had helped engineer Monday’s stunt in which Sharon Simmons, 58, a grandmother of 10 from Fayetteville, Arkansas, hand-delivered a McDonald’s order to the Oval Office.
But after the Daily Beast and other media outlets revealed that Simmons had a history of Republican-backed appearances promoting the No Tax on Tips policy she had been sent to celebrate by DoorDash, Crowley had a social media meltdown defending the bungled PR attempt.
“No one is claiming it was a real delivery,” the Australian comms chief posted. “It was clearly and obviously a planned event to mark a new policy starting. To claim Sharon is a prop, plant or an actor is totally wrong and off base.”
He also confirmed that DoorDash had briefed Simmons on what to expect before she met both the president and the press. “Ofc we would speak to Sharon about what to expect before she appeared before the media and with the President,” he wrote. “But, Sharon spoke for herself and in support of No Tax on Tips.”
As critics pressed harder, Crowley’s tone sharpened. When one user pointed out that Simmons had served as the convenient face of the same policy on multiple separate occasions, Crowley fired back: “No you’re totally right. A person can’t have the same view on a policy that they had a year ago. That tracks.” To another skeptic, he was more succinct: “You need to touch grass.”
Political commentator Brett Meiselas, of MeidasTouch, was among those who took note, posting: “The PR guy at DoorDash is having a bit of a crash out.”
The furor followed the Beast’s report on Tuesday that Simmons had testified before a House Ways and Means Committee field hearing in Nevada in July 2025 and had appeared in a promotional video posted by Republican Rep. Jason Smith, chair of the Ways and Means Committee, before the Oval Office visit—neither fact disclosed by DoorDash when it announced the stunt.
Minutes after the Beast’s original article was published on Tuesday, a separate member of DoorDash’s public affairs team, Parker Dorrough, its head of policy communications, called this reporter and asked that we go easy on Simmons.
It was pointed out to Dorrough that the company may not have fully thought through the personal scrutiny its stunt would bring to a woman already under severe financial strain. Her husband remains in cancer treatment. A GoFundMe set up by her son-in-law, Kyrie Quijano, describes the financial pressure on the couple as “overwhelming.”
Some social media users also raised questions about whether any compensation Simmons received could trigger disclosure obligations under Washington, D.C., lobbying rules.
Others focused on the broader contradiction at the heart of the event. One social media user observed the irony of the man responsible for PR and optics generating a PR crisis of his own making. Another argued that a broken healthcare system—one that forces a grandmother into gig work to cover her husband’s cancer costs—deserved more than a tax break on tips as a policy response.
DoorDash did not immediately respond to the Beast’s request for comment
