A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein - The Truth About DoorDash Grandma

00:00:00.000 For the first time in A Bit Fruity's almost three-year history, I was going to skip this week.

00:00:06.540 I needed a break. I spent Monday of this week basically all day at a protest with Jewish Voice

00:00:14.220 for Peace. I was just feeling like I was getting behind on all the stuff I had to do. And I was

00:00:20.180 just like, you know what, Matt? Take a week. You're overwhelmed. Schedule a great episode for next

00:00:25.120 week, push your schedule back a week. Nobody's going to stone you. It's fine. I told my boyfriend,

00:00:31.280 I have a guy who helps me like plan the advertisements for the show. I told him that

00:00:36.040 I was like, I'm so sorry. I'm not going to have an episode this week. But then something happened

00:00:40.800 that was so equally bewildering, tragic and deranged and like fully in need of a debunking.

00:00:49.400 it was like fruity bait you know it was a bit fruity bait and then I was like okay well I guess

00:00:55.600 we're not taking a break this week hello hello and welcome back to a bit fruity the show where

00:01:07.540 sometimes we talk about Debra Messing and sometimes we talk about tax law I'm Matt Bernstein I'm so

00:01:13.620 happy that you're here is that a good intro perfect it's amazing it is kind of my scope

00:01:19.860 we all things from deborah messing to tax law yeah just one big beautiful bill one big beautiful

00:01:27.460 podcast chapter one a russian nesting doll of lies as i said on monday i was leaving a jewish

00:01:36.680 voice for peace protest when i saw a video that found a way to stun me even as it becomes

00:01:42.300 increasingly hard to do that. 0.96

00:01:44.340 The video was of a 58-year-old woman 1.00

00:01:47.200 with short gray hair, dark eye makeup, 0.70

00:01:49.700 and a red T-shirt that read,

00:01:51.800 DoorDash Grandma.

00:01:53.420 She was walking up to the side door

00:01:54.980 of the Oval Office,

00:01:56.520 carrying two bags of McDonald's.

00:01:58.820 None other than Donald Trump answered the door.

00:02:01.420 Hey, nice to see you.

00:02:03.360 Nice to meet you.

00:02:04.720 I have your DoorDash order for you.

00:02:06.960 Jokes to the cameras that the whole thing looks staged.

00:02:10.300 This doesn't look staged, it does.

00:02:12.300 which it was, and accepts the McDonald's.

00:02:15.880 Trump then tells this woman that he heard she had saved $11,000 on her taxes this year,

00:02:23.020 thanks to Trump's no tax on tips policy.

00:02:26.340 The reason for this is the fact that I heard you picked up an extra $11,000

00:02:32.820 because the tax bill was so big, the refund was the biggest you've ever had.

00:02:38.160 Which she confirms.

00:02:39.260 Is that a correct statement?

00:02:40.140 Yeah, I saved over $11,000.

00:02:44.500 And the two ad-libbed to the cameras about how great the policy is

00:02:48.060 and how it's changed her life as a DoorDash driver. 0.80

00:02:51.440 A hard life, by the way.

00:02:53.560 The woman's husband has stage 3 cancer,

00:02:56.360 and she's been DoorDashing to help cover the cost of treatment.

00:03:00.000 Trump then tips her $100.

00:03:02.560 And are the White House good tippers? Do you know?

00:03:04.940 Um, potentially.

00:03:07.760 Actually. Yes, very.

00:03:11.260 Everything about this video was so patently insane to me that I had to learn more.

00:03:17.560 And the more I learned, the more bizarre the actual story got.

00:03:21.740 A lot of people online right now think that this woman, who I will tell you a lot about today,

00:03:26.540 is a paid actor for the MAGA movement, and maybe she isn't even a DoorDash driver at all. 0.64

00:03:33.000 What happened with DoorDash Grandma is indeed a Russian nesting doll of lies,

00:03:37.760 But what I found is more complicated than that, and also somehow more tragic. 0.95

00:03:43.100 Today, we're going to tell what is perhaps the most American story of this year so far.

00:03:49.360 And to do that, I'm so happy to be joined by two of my good friends, good friends of the show,

00:03:54.780 Kat Tenbarge, writer for Spitfire News, and Caroline Kwan, the political and pop culture

00:04:02.200 streamer over on Twitch. 1.00

00:04:04.520 My favorite ladies, welcome back to the show. 0.95

00:04:06.400 Well, not my favorite. I love everyone on this podcast, but you know, for today, we're your

00:04:11.920 favorite, your favorite ladies. Happy to be back with, you know, some of my favorite people. This

00:04:16.740 is a comfort zone now. Just sitting here and talking about crazy shit. I was trying to think 1.00

00:04:23.620 of what her, the DoorDash grandma's eyeshadow reminded me of because I was like, this reminds

00:04:28.660 me of something. And I was like, oh, I just remembered it's a Jeffree Star fan. That's like

00:04:34.680 what her makeup reminds me of wait so true like jeffree star style like someone who buys a jeffree 1.00

00:04:42.140 star palette oh like she fits the average target demo to me it actually gives more like avon lady 0.95

00:04:48.580 oh just like kind of like a sort of smudging around of some sort of like cool toned like

00:04:53.960 almost purpley eyeshadow on the eye and like slap some foundation call it a day sort of thing

00:04:58.720 I have a lot of notes here on what's true, what's not true, what is fabricated, what's beneath the surface of this entire situation. We're going to get into all of it. But top line, what are your thoughts? Did you see this?

00:05:14.560 I mean, my first, literally the first thing I was thinking of, that picture of Trump handing

00:05:19.900 her a $100 bill. Obviously, the ploy here is like, what an amazing tip for like your DoorDash

00:05:26.100 driver. Like we're on, we're not all tipping our DoorDash drivers $100 bills. But I tried to

00:05:30.820 calculate, like just in the past year, Trump has made an estimated like $3 billion from mainly

00:05:37.100 crypto. And I was trying to calculate like, what is $100 to someone who made $3 billion in the last

00:05:43.420 year and the calculator could not do it it went out of space because it was so close to zero it

00:05:49.480 was like such a tiny tiny fraction of his net worth so it would be like the equivalent of you

00:05:53.820 or i tipping a doordash driver like like less than a half of a penny it's like it's actually

00:05:59.400 not a good tip when you made three billion dollars in the past year he should be giving

00:06:03.840 his doordash drivers like ten thousand dollars each and that would be like an okay tip for him

00:06:09.940 I also see a world where after the cameras stopped rolling, he's like, yeah, I'll have that back.

00:06:15.520 Thanks very much.

00:06:16.700 He pulled a J-Lo.

00:06:18.860 I don't know if you guys know this, but famously J-Lo will take tips back from servers.

00:06:26.800 I did not know that.

00:06:27.880 That was a prop.

00:06:29.060 I'll have that back.

00:06:30.400 Or, you know, or it's one of those fake hundred dollar bills with his face on it.

00:06:35.300 One of the Donald Trump bills.

00:06:37.220 Yeah, they would like, I remember growing up like kids at bar mitzvahs, like you would get like your face printed on a bunch of like fake money and then they would like throw it out during like while you're like dancing to Pitbull at your bar mitzvah. It was like Trump bar mitzvah money for sure.

00:06:50.500 Yeah, they used to do this at the clubs that I worked at where you would see people scrambling to pick up what they thought were real bills on the ground. And it's just some asshole's face that he had shot out of a cannon with a bunch of confetti. 0.99

00:07:06.300 Oh, my gosh. 1.00

00:07:07.420 Yeah. And the realization on people's face when they would pick up the bill and go, oh, this is not real.

00:07:12.800 I want to start with the events that day at the White House. Let's start with the story as the

00:07:20.780 White House is telling it about this woman, about their interaction, and about what this is all for.

00:07:26.020 So Sharon Simmons is a 58-year-old grandmother of 10. That's true. She lives in Fayetteville,

00:07:33.000 Arkansas, and has been door dashing since 2021. DoorDash, if you don't know, if you live outside

00:07:39.980 of the U.S., is a food delivery app. And Sharon has completed over 14,000 trips dropping off

00:07:47.620 people's food since 2021. She said she enjoys the flexibility of the job. DoorDash and the White

00:07:54.760 House collaborated on this staged Oval Office meetup to celebrate the one-year anniversary of

00:08:01.020 Trump's no-tax-on-tips policy, which the White House introduced with the quote-unquote big

00:08:06.780 beautiful bill. More on that policy in a second. We will dig into it. Sharon was selected by

00:08:12.440 DoorDash to appear in this stunt and flown from Arkansas to D.C. for it. Immediately following 0.98

00:08:18.640 the visit, both the White House and DoorDash posted photos and videos from it for advertising

00:08:24.580 purposes. You know, Trump wants to advertise this policy he has. DoorDash wants to advertise

00:08:29.640 DoorDash. So the White House at White House tweets a photo of Trump handing Sharon Simmons

00:08:35.060 the $100 bill, and writes, in all caps,

00:08:38.560 No tax on tips.

00:08:40.660 With the, like, dollars flying with wings emoji.

00:08:43.440 Yeah.

00:08:44.360 DoorDash Impact, DoorDash's philanthropy account,

00:08:48.220 which I guess they have,

00:08:50.300 tweeted a video montage they made of the stunt and wrote,

00:08:53.500 Most deliveries don't end at the at White House.

00:08:57.520 This one did. 0.97

00:08:59.200 Sharon, a dasher and grandma from Arkansas, 0.98

00:09:02.520 made the delivery to at POTUS

00:09:04.660 and shared her thanks for no tax on tips,

00:09:07.760 helping millions keep more of what they earn. 0.69

00:09:10.780 When Dashers make their voices heard,

00:09:12.940 real change happens. 1.00

00:09:14.440 This reminds me of like a Mr. Beast philanthropy post.

00:09:18.360 Like it's the vibe of like team trees.

00:09:21.280 I help a thousand people to see for the first time.

00:09:24.180 The CEO of DoorDash tweets,

00:09:27.500 Dashers have delivered billions of orders, 0.93

00:09:29.640 but this was our first to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

00:09:33.300 Sharon, a dasher and grandma from Arkansas,

00:09:36.120 knocked on the Oval Office door to thank at POTUS

00:09:39.040 for delivering no tax on tips,

00:09:41.340 a policy that helps millions of hardworking Americans

00:09:43.960 keep more of what they earn.

00:09:45.780 This is the kind of change that can happen.

00:09:48.080 It's just regurgitating company lines.

00:09:50.700 The White House retweets all of DoorDash's tweets.

00:09:53.940 DoorDash retweets all of the White House's tweets.

00:09:56.860 Now, I just have to say,

00:09:58.640 there's a lot of debunking that has to happen here,

00:10:01.780 and we're about to do that.

00:10:03.280 But even if we take this whole situation at face value,

00:10:07.780 we're looking at a woman, a senior citizen, nearly,

00:10:13.580 who is delivering food for tips

00:10:17.680 so she can pay for her husband's stage three cancer treatment.

00:10:24.580 And this is presented as like,

00:10:27.160 aw, Sharon made her voice heard.

00:10:29.620 Yeah, it's a nightmare.

00:10:30.900 but also such an American story.

00:10:33.560 Yeah.

00:10:34.640 It's also like just such a distortion of reality

00:10:38.680 because as we're going to talk about more,

00:10:41.960 like the White House does not get DoorDash.

00:10:44.540 This is not like a real thing that happens.

00:10:46.860 Donald Trump is not ordering like DoorDash on his phone.

00:10:50.160 He has an entire team of people waiting on his hand and foot,

00:10:54.220 every whim that passes through his head.

00:10:56.300 It's like such a bizarre appeal toward relatability

00:10:59.500 because it's like, oh, ordering DoorDash from McDonald's.

00:11:02.800 Like, what a normal all-American thing to do.

00:11:05.160 But the concept of a grandma DoorDash deliverer 0.99

00:11:09.040 knocking on the Oval Office door

00:11:11.020 is blatantly absurd on its face.

00:11:14.880 I mean, to me, it just, it reminds me of those stories

00:11:17.500 where it's like, aw, preschoolers wash cars

00:11:20.560 to raise money for markers in their classroom.

00:11:23.420 And it's like, wait, why do they have to do anything

00:11:26.220 to raise money for markers in the classroom?

00:11:28.000 Why is this grandmother delivering food to pay for her elderly husband's cancer treatment? 0.71

00:11:36.440 This isn't a good country if that's happening. 0.99

00:11:39.640 No, it's truly giving the orphan crushing machine.

00:11:43.160 Can you explain what that is?

00:11:44.260 So this is a tweet.

00:11:45.780 The tweet goes, every heartwarming human interest story in America is like,

00:11:50.260 he raised X amount of money to keep orphans from being crushed in the orphan crushing machine.

00:11:59.180 And everyone's like, yay, how wonderful. But nobody's asking, why does the orphan crushing

00:12:05.640 machine exist in the first place? And why are we having to raise money to prevent it from being

00:12:12.780 used heartwarming grandmother of 10 brings mcdonald's to billionaire who has grossed 0.98

00:12:20.360 three billion dollars while in office as president over the past one and a half years

00:12:25.460 warms my patriotic heart truly but the thing is is that people they they do have their hearts

00:12:34.160 warmed from this stuff i was on the r slash orphan crushing machine subreddit and

00:12:40.880 it's a subreddit that makes fun of these types of stories but there was a post someone shared

00:12:48.960 where somebody said wow what a not unironically what a wonderful story about the doordash grandma

00:12:58.580 loving her husband so much that she's doordashing to raise money for his cancer treatment

00:13:04.360 and i mean i'm sure she does love him but that's really not the point people have been

00:13:11.340 propagandized so much into believing that like having to afford cancer treatment like that that's

00:13:19.880 where the conversation should start that it's like something you have to work hard to receive

00:13:23.780 as like medical care and also that like it's a sign of your moral virtue that you are doing this

00:13:30.280 type of labor in old age so that your husband can survive. Like the reality is there's nothing

00:13:37.460 heartwarming about that because it's such a backward system. If this is what we're forcing 1.00

00:13:41.920 like elderly people to do to live, it goes against so much of like the other propaganda we hear about 0.94

00:13:48.680 how like women shouldn't have to work. Women should be able to stay in the home and men should 1.00

00:13:54.000 be providers. But if your husband gets cancer, then you need to start picking up food at McDonald's 1.00

00:13:59.760 and driving it to people's houses

00:14:01.200 because otherwise you're not a good person anymore.

00:14:05.300 I also just can't with how obsessed Trump is with McDonald's.

00:14:09.880 Of course it was McDonald's.

00:14:11.560 Yeah.

00:14:12.000 Yes.

00:14:12.580 I mean, he's out here serving McDonald's

00:14:14.100 to the men's hockey team after winning the Olympics.

00:14:18.140 I feel like that is such a key part of Trump's propaganda

00:14:21.400 is like pretending he is an everyman

00:14:24.180 and like his base eats that up.

00:14:26.560 Like the Pennsylvania McDonald's stunt

00:14:28.940 where he was putting the fries in the bag like people loved that and what also drives me crazy

00:14:33.960 about this is that people treat working class people in these roles so terribly all the time

00:14:41.680 but the second that it like benefits trump's agenda people are like we love doordash grandma

00:14:46.840 like we love people who do these types of roles in society no put the fries in the bag is literally

00:14:52.120 like a meme used to degrade people online and like every week online there's discourse about

00:14:59.140 how like no one should ever have to tip so at the same time that you don't want to like pay these

00:15:03.940 people and you don't think that they like deserve to make a living wage and in fact you think their

00:15:07.400 choice of career path is insulting but also now suddenly it's like a heartwarming story it's like

00:15:13.440 people have been propagandized into believing two inherently contradictory things about this

00:15:18.800 type of labor. So we've established that like even if we took everything that happened here

00:15:25.080 at face value like this is pretty fucked up but we also can't take it at face value for a lot of

00:15:32.320 reasons and where I want to begin with this unpacking is talking about no tax on tips which 0.96

00:15:39.340 is probably something you've heard about it most likely just statistically doesn't apply to you

00:15:46.000 because tipped workers only represent 2.5% of the American working population and it doesn't even

00:15:52.740 apply to all of them. So let's just talk about no tax on tips, establish what it is, and establish

00:15:58.620 how it has actually affected this woman's life. So no tax on tips is a policy, like I said,

00:16:05.600 enacted by the Trump administration last summer as part of the quote-unquote big beautiful bill.

00:16:10.580 now this is not an economics podcast it is now however it is today however as a freelancer

00:16:24.380 i have had to learn a lot about doing taxes because when you don't have a company doing

00:16:31.480 it for you and taking money out of your paycheck every month for taxes and you have to figure all

00:16:35.500 that out yourself. It is so goddamn confusing. And I have to give a shout out to my dad here 0.95

00:16:43.760 because he used to be an accountant and he is just so smart and has taught me so much about taxes

00:16:49.560 and really helped me. And it is through this episode that I am making for him that I can flex

00:16:54.800 my knowledge about how the U.S. tax system works. But I've also tried to make this as entertaining

00:16:59.720 as possible so let's talk about taxes happy tax season everyone also isn't it tax day today it is

00:17:07.520 literally tax day on the day we're recording this yeah i also felt like this stunt all things aside

00:17:12.060 was really poorly timed because i was like that you're doing it in the midnight hour of tax season

00:17:16.560 but whatever the worst time ever and also because people are doing their taxes right now if no tax

00:17:22.220 on tips applies to them they will be thinking about this stunt and quickly realizing that it

00:17:26.680 It is impossible to save as much money as this woman is claiming to have saved. 0.99

00:17:32.180 $11,000. 0.90

00:17:34.820 So let's talk about it.

00:17:36.860 What no tax on tips does is allow a specific subset of tip workers like bartenders, wait

00:17:44.420 staff, barbers and hairstylists, taxi drivers, and most recently, food delivery drivers for

00:17:50.820 DoorDash, to deduct the money they make each year in TIPS from their total annual taxable income.

00:17:58.120 So if you made $30,000 in 2025, let's say, but $5,000 of that $30,000 was from TIPS,

00:18:05.400 then you'd only pay federal taxes on $25,000. I highlight federal taxes because you still have

00:18:12.300 to pay state and local taxes on the full $30,000. The no tax on TIPS policy only applies at a federal

00:18:20.040 level. We'll get into more specifics on that in a bit, but those are the basics. And so, like I

00:18:26.600 said, in theory, this does save some tip workers some money on their taxes. Could you guys explain

00:18:34.100 then why corporations and big businesses and Trump love this policy, even though it is theoretically

00:18:42.320 to benefit workers? Yeah. So just off the bat, if companies like DoorDash are lobbying for

00:18:48.240 legislation like this, you know it's not good. You know that it ultimately harms more workers

00:18:54.180 that it helps. So this part of the one big, beautiful bill actually encourages harmful

00:19:01.680 employer practices because companies like DoorDash use this to justify, one, classifying their

00:19:08.560 employers as independent contractors. So then they have to pay the federal taxes, Social Security,

00:19:14.860 Medicare, all that. And also so that if they do have them classified as employees, they don't have

00:19:21.680 to pay a higher sub-minimum wage because they go, what? Well, they're getting no taxes on TIPS.

00:19:30.220 So actually, it's good for them to have more of their income in TIPS. We don't want it to be that

00:19:36.140 the income is coming from their hourly wage. It should be coming from TIPS. So it helps few

00:19:42.020 low-wage workers and undercuts pay for many, many more. It benefits employers at the workers'

00:19:49.820 expense. And the issue is we need to raise the federal minimum wage, and we also need to end

00:19:56.260 the sub-minimum wage for tipped workers. So this part of the big, beautiful bill

00:20:02.160 makes that harder. It makes the fight that workers have been on the front lines fighting for,

00:20:08.120 it makes that fight that much harder because they use this as a distraction and as a justification

00:20:16.460 for continuing harmful practices and policies against workers.

00:20:23.640 Exactly. And corporations love stuff like this because it transfers the onus of paying workers

00:20:30.540 onto the customer rather than the business.

00:20:33.880 People online are always complaining and rightfully so to a big extent that like businesses like DoorDash are subsidizing their workforce by getting us, the customers, to pay for it on top of like the goods and services that we're already paying for.

00:20:49.320 And this is more of the same. It is a deeper continuation of that dynamic. And people who

00:20:57.380 work under this type of gig employment have increasingly been organizing and unionizing

00:21:02.660 and attempting to unionize over the past few years so that they can be considered more so employees

00:21:09.100 so that companies like Uber and DoorDash, which are billion-dollar companies,

00:21:13.980 multi-billion dollar companies that could easily afford to pay for benefits, to pay a minimum wage,

00:21:21.000 to ensure that like their drivers and the delivery people who are the foundation of their business

00:21:25.840 are not unhoused and living in their cars, but they don't want to do that. So totally it functions

00:21:31.680 as a distraction and a way to undermine the workers who are trying to organize to campaign

00:21:37.120 for better rights. Yeah. And, you know, on a personal note, like a lot of people online

00:21:42.960 claim about how like now everyone asks for tips and you have to tip at the coffee place and you

00:21:48.000 have to tip at the everywhere. And look, I get it's annoying on a personal level. I always tip,

00:21:53.560 you know, as long as we have this tipping system, which is very unique to the United States and

00:21:59.280 completely exploitative, you know, I'll do what I can when I get an iced latte to make it a little

00:22:04.800 easier for the workers. But the bottom line is on a systemic level, we should not have this system

00:22:09.480 because the minimum wage should be a living minimum wage,

00:22:12.880 but it's not.

00:22:14.200 And these no tax on tips policies

00:22:16.820 just further entrenches us in a system

00:22:19.240 where workers are more and more exploited by businesses,

00:22:23.560 which can say, well, look,

00:22:25.000 we can just continue shifting the onus of pay

00:22:27.020 onto the customers who it is ultimately their choice

00:22:30.360 whether or not to tip.

00:22:31.140 Yeah, it's frustrating because people who complain

00:22:34.420 about having to pay tips and tipping culture

00:22:39.040 They don't direct that energy towards our lawmakers raising the federal minimum wage, phasing out the tip minimum wage, and they don't direct that energy towards these companies.

00:22:50.820 And it's just like so much of anti tipping discourse. And I think like no tax on tips further entrenches this. There are these ideas that a this type of labor is not valuable. And like people who do these types of tipped jobs aren't doing enough to earn their tips.

00:23:08.700 so commonly when people talk about this online it's like you took my order and like filled up

00:23:13.100 my coffee cup and then turned the screen around and you're expecting a tip and like people use

00:23:17.340 this discourse to like devalue this labor even though it's incredibly hard work it's incredibly

00:23:22.940 taxing it is actually so physically taxing that it's bad for your body to do this which adds

00:23:28.500 another layer of insult to injury or that the door dash grandma is doing this and she is like

00:23:33.300 physically older and more frail in addition to that it's also like there's this idea and you

00:23:39.680 always see these stories pushed online that like people who earn tips are actually rich like there

00:23:46.040 you'll see people pick up on stories of like this person who works in front of house at a five star

00:23:52.140 like michelin star manhattan restaurant says he makes like six figures a year but that is not the

00:23:57.380 average experience of people who work for tips they're not like pulling one over us and like

00:24:02.520 making all of this money. Most people are just struggling to get by if they are tipped employees.

00:24:08.080 And the fact that the Trump administration is now like lying blatantly about how much you can make

00:24:12.840 only furthers that stigma that it's like some sort of life cheat code when it's really not.

00:24:18.940 And if you've worked for tips, like I worked for tips for years, like it is not a get rich

00:24:24.080 quick scheme. It is the opposite of that. It is grueling, underpaid, undervalued labor.

00:24:29.840 Yes. And that segues me perfectly into, like I mentioned, 2.5% of Americans are tip workers.

00:24:39.240 A third of those workers don't make enough money to pay any federal taxes in the first place.

00:24:46.960 Meaning, if you're not paying federal taxes, then no tax on tips does nothing for you.

00:24:52.400 The remaining two-thirds of those 2.5% of Americans mostly pay very little in federal taxes simply because they don't make that much to begin with, so they're in a very low tax bracket.

00:25:05.720 So how much money can no tax on tips actually save you?

00:25:10.940 Let's discuss.

00:25:12.200 us. I would also like to take a quick break from the show to give a shout out to the American

00:25:20.980 Humanist Association. I am so proud and grateful that the AHA sponsors this show. They are such a

00:25:28.500 wonderful organization that just aims to inject humanist principles into our government, into our

00:25:36.280 laws into our communities and take out things like coercive religion. You shouldn't be governed

00:25:42.380 by Christianity. We still have a thing allegedly called the separation between church and state. 0.96

00:25:47.760 Wouldn't it be nice if we actually had laws and lawmakers that upheld that promise? Well,

00:25:52.620 the American Humanist Association is doing the work to make that reality. And if you're feeling

00:25:57.560 just paralyzed lately, which hopefully you're not too paralyzed because you're listening to

00:26:02.700 this podcast, so it's a good start. You're still engaging with the world. But if you'd like to

00:26:07.260 really engage with the world, the American Humanist Association is embarking on a big project coming

00:26:12.380 up on May 2nd. The AHA is hosting a ton of community events all over the country. We're

00:26:18.640 talking supporting families impacted by ice, environmental cleanups, crafting with seniors.

00:26:25.140 Think thousands of people showing up across the country to help other people in their communities.

00:26:31.300 an extremely basic practice of humanist principles.

00:26:35.700 And right now in a time where we are all subjected

00:26:39.500 to maximum cruelty from some of the loudest microphones

00:26:43.080 in the country every single day,

00:26:44.780 I think it's really great to get out

00:26:47.160 and practice love for one another.

00:26:50.120 If you would like to get involved on May 2nd,

00:26:52.420 you can visit AmericanEmpathyProject.org.

00:26:55.920 That is AmericanEmpathyProject.org.

00:26:59.260 And if you'd like to learn more

00:27:00.880 about the American Humanist Association,

00:27:03.060 you can check that out at humanist.org slash fruity.

00:27:07.000 Now, let's get back to the episode.

00:27:11.540 The impossible math of $11,000.

00:27:15.240 So I just want to reiterate how this whole stunt

00:27:17.880 with DoorDash Grandma was framed around

00:27:19.980 how no tax on tips saved this woman $11,000. 1.00

00:27:24.720 $11,000.

00:27:27.380 In the video of Sharon Simmons at the White House,

00:27:30.020 Trump tells her he heard she, quote, picked up an extra $11,000 from No Tax on Tips.

00:27:37.100 And he asks her if that's correct.

00:27:38.940 And she says yes.

00:27:40.300 In fact, she says she saved, quote, over $11,000 by not having to claim.

00:27:46.440 The White House at White House tweeted,

00:27:49.080 DoorDash hits the Oval Office with an emoji of fries.

00:27:53.120 $11,000 refund delivered, all thanks to No Tax on Tips.

00:27:58.920 Millions of drivers across America are leveling up this tax season.

00:28:03.180 This $11,000 figure, the claim that Sharon Simmons saved $11,000 from her 2025 tax bill

00:28:10.800 because of no tax on tips, this was the number heard around the world.

00:28:14.860 This was, someone made a list somewhere, but basically every single major media outlet

00:28:19.980 ran this number, which I think frankly is irresponsible.

00:28:24.300 Which is crazy.

00:28:25.740 But it is also the number that Trump and her said that she saved in this video.

00:28:33.260 It's also mathematically impossible.

00:28:36.520 It is impossible to save $11,000 annually from no tax on tips, not just for Sharon Simmons, but for literally anybody.

00:28:45.640 I am going to try to explain this to the best of my ability.

00:28:48.320 Like I said, this is not a finance podcast, but walk with me.

00:28:52.620 Or should I say drive with me?

00:28:53.960 Boo.

00:28:55.740 door dash with me all right you two are gonna have to tell me how i did but i'm launching into

00:29:03.120 the script i wrote about some tax numbers and this gets into the weeds for people who may live

00:29:09.240 outside of the u.s where taxes are done differently here's the basics of what we do over here you pay

00:29:14.480 taxes every year based on how much money you made that year you have to pay federal taxes to the u.s

00:29:20.340 government, state taxes to your state government, and local taxes to your local government.

00:29:26.100 Generally speaking, the more money you make, the higher percentage of that total income you pay

00:29:31.300 in taxes. Even though we know in practice the richest billionaires among us find ways to avoid

00:29:36.880 paying their share completely, but that's for another time. Well, I guess I'm always talking

00:29:40.660 about that. But whatever. Anyway. Then we have this thing called deductions, which is money you

00:29:45.580 can subtract from your total taxable income for a variety of reasons. Like, say I bought a $1,000

00:29:51.640 camera to make this podcast, which is my job. That's a business expense. And therefore, as a

00:29:57.320 freelancer, I can deduct that from my total taxable income at the end of the year. So if my original

00:30:04.100 total taxable income is $10,000, now it's $9,000. That doesn't mean I save $1,000. It means I'm

00:30:13.560 paying taxes on a smaller amount of money. And the actual amount I'm saving as a result of that

00:30:19.740 is a fraction of the amount deducted from the total income, if that makes sense. Saving $1,000

00:30:26.060 in that situation would be called a tax credit, which is applied after you've received your tax

00:30:31.260 bill. Deductions are applied before you receive your tax bill as part of the calculation for how

00:30:36.420 much you owe and don't represent dollar-for-dollar savings. The bottom line is a $1,000 tax deduction

00:30:43.460 doesn't mean you saved a thousand dollars and no tax on tips is a tax deduction not a tax credit

00:30:50.240 does that make sense so far it's like that famous schitt's creek episode where david yes it is that

00:30:57.000 yes because people and people think this all the time and if you're not like a freelancer

00:31:01.000 or if you don't have to do like complicated things with your taxes i think a lot of people

00:31:05.480 don't understand this because they hear like oh that's a tax deduction that's a tax write-off like

00:31:09.740 you hear these things and you're like, these people just aren't paying taxes. No. In the

00:31:13.800 Schitt's Creek episode, David buys all of this stuff, like a lamp, random furniture, and he's

00:31:18.000 like, they're tax write offs. And his dad is like, you still have to pay taxes. You are just paying

00:31:22.960 taxes on less income. It's very different. It is admittedly kind of confusing, but that is the

00:31:30.200 perfect example. Yeah. So tipped workers are still reporting their tips as income. And that's why

00:31:36.380 one issue here is that for people who are getting tax breaks on tipped income it can make them lose

00:31:45.260 eligibility to other tax credits such as the eitc right right which is a whole let's let's keep it

00:31:53.620 as simple as possible okay sorry i thought we were a finance podcast a bit fruity more like a bit

00:32:01.000 finance. So what we know about Sharon Simmons is that her 2025 income was $22,000. She said this

00:32:12.540 and $11,000 of that were in tips. So right off the bat, she didn't save $11,000. $11,000 was just

00:32:21.800 how much she made in tips. But let's focus right now on that total income of $22,000. 0.95

00:32:27.120 According to federal tax law, if a couple is jointly making less than $31,500 per year,

00:32:35.480 they owe zero dollars in federal taxes, simply because they're not making enough money.

00:32:41.480 We know Sharon's husband has stage 3 cancer, which she said has reduced his capacity to work.

00:32:47.300 So if we were to assume that he isn't working at all, then Sharon and her husband would owe

00:32:53.080 zero dollars in federal taxes in the first place. And therefore, no tax on tips, which only applies

00:32:58.480 to federal taxes, would have saved her zero dollars. Now, let's say her husband is still

00:33:04.500 working and earning money. And let's say he's earning $40,000 a year, making their joint income

00:33:10.800 $62,000. At that point, they are paying federal taxes, albeit at a very low rate, and can deduct

00:33:19.080 the $11,000 Sharon earned from tips from their total income. At that tax rate, the no tax on

00:33:26.120 tips policy would save them around $1,200, which is not $11,000. If her husband was making, say,

00:33:36.020 $60,000 a year, and their joint income was then $82,000, then their no tax on tips savings would

00:33:43.360 pushed to $1,300, which is not $11,000. Putting Sharon aside for a second, I want to ask,

00:33:52.100 is it even possible to save $11,000 on no tax on tips? I wanted to find out. And the answer is no.

00:33:59.260 Because let's say a worker earned the maximum amount of tips you can deduct based on this

00:34:04.100 policy, which is $25,000. To actually pocket $11,000 off of that deduction, your federal tax

00:34:11.740 rate would have to be 44%. 11 is 44% of 25. And guess what? A 44% tax rate does not exist.

00:34:22.320 The highest federal tax bracket in 2025 is 37%. And at that rate, deducting $25,000 in tips from

00:34:31.260 your annual income would save you a little over $9,000, which, say it with me, is not $11,000.

00:34:40.580 $1,000. I'm so sorry. I was about to say in tears again. I'm still stuck on.

00:34:46.160 But here's the thing. Here's the thing. To even be in the 37% tax bracket as a married couple,

00:34:52.780 you would have to have a combined income of more than $751,600 a year.

00:35:00.360 Meaning. It's just not happening. Meaning Sharon's husband would have to have earned

00:35:05.660 $729,600 in 2025. And this is assuming that Sharon earned $25,000 in tips, which she didn't.

00:35:17.000 And even then, they would not qualify at that point for no tax on tips, because if you earn

00:35:23.200 more than $300,000 as a couple, you aren't eligible for the policy. So it is mathematically

00:35:30.360 impossible to pocket $11,000 from this policy. It is also impossible to pocket $9,000 from this

00:35:38.300 policy. The maximum amount. Oh, I had my calculator out. The maximum you can pocket in a year from no

00:35:46.480 tax on tips. If as a couple, you are making that tippy top $300,000 a year and earning $25,000 on

00:35:55.480 tips is about six thousand dollars which say it with me is not 11 000 yeah you know my question

00:36:09.140 is is sharon secretly super rich because she's actually a lobbyist for doordash are they paying

00:36:18.240 her a ton of money and her real job is a lobbyist no that's also it does not uh erase the math that

00:36:26.680 you just beautifully walked us through did that make sense it did yeah i'm kind of insecure about

00:36:31.880 my ability to communicate that i'm i'm hoping people didn't tune out no no tldr if you did 0.98

00:36:36.960 tune out tldr surprise surprise it's bullshit yeah okay surprise surprise door dash grandma 0.99

00:36:43.520 saving $11,000 in 2025 is totally BS. 0.99

00:36:49.140 This is so reminiscent of Republican tax propaganda

00:36:52.800 that they have been doing for decades.

00:36:55.320 Because for decades, the Republican Party

00:36:57.720 has sold the idea to working class Americans

00:37:00.340 that the reason they are financially struggling

00:37:02.580 is because they pay too much in taxes

00:37:05.040 and that tax cuts are the way to prosperity

00:37:08.240 and a better country.

00:37:09.960 And decade after decade, administration after administration,

00:37:12.440 the Republican government has cut so much from taxes. Tax cuts have been instituted across

00:37:18.500 generations and it has not meaningfully improved people's economic situations. In fact, they've

00:37:23.840 only gotten worse. Why? Because you have rich billionaires like Donald Trump taking up all of

00:37:30.560 the resources. I keep saying he made $3 billion last year, but it is inconceivable that the

00:37:38.060 president of the united states profited that much while in office it is like so out of the ballpark

00:37:43.600 that you have these oligarchs making so much money it does like six thousand dollars the maximum

00:37:50.000 savings that almost no one is making from no tax on tips doesn't even come close not even like in

00:37:55.980 the same arena as the amount of money that these guys are making for doing nothing mind you they

00:38:02.780 don't like they donald trump did not lift a finger to make that amount of money they're expecting

00:38:07.700 grandmothers of 10 to go out and work day and night this very taxing grueling job have you

00:38:15.240 ever like like talk to a doordash delivery person it is not an easy job and then it's like but that

00:38:21.020 the six thousand dollars in savings that you won't make are supposed to make up for that it won't it

00:38:25.740 doesn't even come close it's also like the irony having trump and republicans champion this tipped

00:38:33.860 income deduction part of the big beautiful bill while let's not forget the big beautiful bill

00:38:41.000 is all about massive cuts to health care yeah energy food assistance programs and the majority

00:38:49.320 the pretty much entirety of these tax cuts are for corporations and the ultra wealthy so they

00:38:56.800 are out here being like look at this amazing no tax on tips isn't this awesome hoping that they

00:39:02.100 dangle it in front of people's faces when it doesn't even apply to the majority of workers

00:39:06.180 in this country. When the big, beautiful bill is so disastrous, even if we were to pretend

00:39:13.260 this $11,000 is real or, you know, that so many people are benefiting from the no tax on tips, 0.61

00:39:19.780 they are being fucked over by Medicaid cuts. They're being fucked over by losing access to 0.96

00:39:26.380 food assistance programs. This bill has fucked them thoroughly. 1.00

00:39:30.800 Exactly. 0.99

00:39:31.320 And that's why tax cuts don't work, because they're going to advertise, oh, look, look

00:39:35.320 how much money you can save from this no tax on tips part of the big, beautiful bill, which

00:39:38.980 first of all, they're lying about how much money you can actually save and what little

00:39:42.080 you may have actually saved.

00:39:43.680 You already are are under on because you have to use it to pay for all of these social services

00:39:48.260 that they cut.

00:39:49.100 Yeah, this is why tax cuts haven't benefited people's lives.

00:39:53.660 They've been Republicans.

00:39:54.800 This has been their number one thing for decades and decades, decades.

00:39:57.600 It hasn't worked.

00:39:58.080 And it's like going back to the original premise of this, that she needs to doordash so that she can afford her husband's cancer surgery. All the money that the billionaires are stealing from America could pay for the surgery in the first place. Like you shouldn't have to work to pay for the cancer treatment at all, period. Because that money is literally evaporating and it's being stolen. And like, that's the reality is like, to your point, Caroline, they're jangling keys in front of you.

00:40:26.400 like you can make $11,000 while they steal $11 bajillion from like the money that could have

00:40:32.360 gone toward these services. Right, right. So after the White House visit took place and the $11,000

00:40:38.440 figure soared around the world, Sharon Simmons did a Fox News interview wherein she clarified

00:40:44.460 that $11,000 was in fact how much she earned in tips, not how much she saved. She clarified in

00:40:52.800 this interview that her actual savings were, quote, you know, I mean, if you really want to

00:40:57.420 break down the numbers, I probably saved probably three to four thousand dollars with not having to

00:41:06.320 pay. I still doubt that. Hmm. I got my calculator back out because for Sharon and her husband to

00:41:15.060 have saved, let's go on the low end of that estimate, three thousand dollars in taxes on

00:41:19.920 $11,000 of tips, they would need to have been in at least the 24% tax bracket. And even then it's

00:41:26.740 shaky that they could save that much. But to be in that tax bracket, their combined income in 2025

00:41:32.600 would have had to have been more than $206,000, meaning Sharon's husband would have had to earn

00:41:39.480 at least $184,000. What is most likely here is that Sharon and her husband saved $1,500 or less

00:41:48.300 on no tax on tips and that is plainly not enough to cover or even significantly reduce the cost

00:41:55.520 of cancer treatment no for that reason i feel terribly for them and the thing is is that if

00:42:01.640 that means she made enough money to have to pay federal income tax on the tips then that would

00:42:08.620 mean she was subjected to arkansas state income taxes so anyway the whole thing is it's all it's 0.81

00:42:17.200 all bullshit because they lied from the get-go by saying that she didn't have to claim this on her 0.93

00:42:23.240 taxes. I saved over $11,000 by not having to claim. You do have to claim it on your taxes. 0.99

00:42:31.160 You have to report your tips as income. It's about deductions, as we covered earlier.

00:42:34.840 The average rent in the United States as of early 2026 is more than $1,500 a month. So

00:42:42.100 even just like looking at your basic needs, these types of savings are not meeting like that very

00:42:48.500 basic level of being able to provide adequate housing, adequate shelter. Like it is so dire

00:42:53.980 for people making this amount of money in the United States. Like they have to rely on services

00:42:59.720 to have their basic needs met. And this is not touching that problem. No. For the Trump

00:43:04.220 administration to act like they can do no tax on tips and cut things like services for food

00:43:11.000 insecurity housing insecurity medicare medicaid it is just so grotesque it is so so so so grotesque

00:43:18.320 and it does give the vibe that they're like laughing in our faces while destroying many

00:43:22.440 many many people's lives right now in another fox news interview sharon did the following day

00:43:28.440 she attempts to clarify once again that the eleven thousand dollars was how much she earned

00:43:34.140 in tips there there's been misunderstandings about you know like my taxes and stuff

00:43:40.580 and i made over 11 000 in tips okay and adds quote but our personal savings and everything

00:43:52.120 on our taxes that's kind of our um business i mean i don't go around asking i don't go around

00:44:00.100 asking you guys hey right what'd you get on what'd you get on your taxes you know

00:44:05.200 and as soon as she tries to start sort of like weaseling out of this entire situation and saying

00:44:12.260 well you know how much we actually saved on our taxes is nobody's business the fox news anchor

00:44:17.520 interrupts her and tells her to not listen to the haters and that she's a quote lovely christian

00:44:24.100 woman you know when i say that you know the eleven thousand dollars that is the amount of tips that i

00:44:33.240 made and so that's just got it and Sharon because because of Donald Trump you get to keep all of

00:44:41.040 that 11,000 you get to spend that to help your husband get better who has cancer or you get to

00:44:45.980 use that for your 10 grandchildren or however you want and it's nobody's business and don't don't

00:44:51.040 feel bad because you're there's some haters out there that will always hate anybody who is standing

00:44:56.200 next to the president you're a lovely Christian woman you said your prayers you love everybody

00:45:01.460 on all sides of the aisle, all walks of life.

00:45:05.400 You're just like everybody else.

00:45:07.460 Most of America is like that. 0.96

00:45:08.760 You live in Arkansas.

00:45:10.280 You just want to have more years with your grandkids and your husband,

00:45:13.260 and you're doing a great job.

00:45:14.720 Thank you for not being political.

00:45:17.280 Oh, classic.

00:45:18.840 Listen, I generally agree that your taxes are nobody's business.

00:45:23.040 But in this very specific instance,

00:45:26.800 when you're being used as a mascot for predatory tax policy,

00:45:31.460 And as an advertisement for the Trump administration and DoorDash, and the whole thing is predicated on you saving a very specific amount on your taxes.

00:45:42.440 Well, no shade, but like maybe it's kind of all of our business now because like you made it such.

00:45:50.020 I don't know.

00:45:50.620 I'm confused.

00:45:51.400 Did Sharon have a moment of clarity where she went, this is patently false.

00:45:58.520 This is not true.

00:45:59.820 And I'm being used to pretend it is.

00:46:02.900 I don't know if she had clarity around that specifically, but I do love the moment when

00:46:07.900 she's with Trump and he's like, you don't want men on women's sports, do you?

00:46:12.500 And she's like, I'm just here to talk about no tax on tips.

00:46:14.760 Like there were moments of clarity happening for Sharon. 0.99

00:46:18.440 They want to have men playing in women's sports.

00:46:20.460 do you think that men should play in women's sports i really don't have an opinion on that

00:46:25.960 you don't i'll bet you do no i i'm here about no tax on tips right he was trying to get her in on

00:46:33.140 other propaganda yeah and you could see she was uncomfortable yeah and then this fox news interview

00:46:38.680 with her saying well that's my personal business because doesn't that mean that she realizes that

00:46:43.960 they are at best misrepresenting her situation here and at worst totally lying and that's the

00:46:53.760 moment when the host cuts in and assures her that she's doing the right thing by lying on behalf of

00:46:58.780 the trump administration don't worry about the haters that's what a good christian woman does

00:47:03.240 is lie on behalf of the trump administration tune out a bit fruity the biggest haters out there 1.00

00:47:08.440 you you really get the full breadth of like right-wing grifter manufacturing psychosis

00:47:16.040 in that teeny tiny clip yes you know it is my personal belief that this woman realized

00:47:24.020 that it was all too late and that it had all gone too far as it was happening particularly

00:47:29.300 as you mentioned because afterwards they held a press conference where she was standing next to

00:47:34.440 Trump. And as you say, he just started invoking like random transphobia of like, you want to get

00:47:39.780 men out of women's sports, right? And she goes, uh, and you can tell she's visibly uncomfortable.

00:47:45.400 And in fact, she references that in the following day's Fox News interview.

00:47:49.900 Did you expect so much backlash from the media and different people questioning your story?

00:47:56.300 I didn't expect that much. No. Um, you know, I, I never really wanted this to be about me.

00:48:03.320 or I didn't want to be part of any of the decisive issues

00:48:10.500 because that's just not me.

00:48:13.640 You know, I love everybody.

00:48:15.660 I love people on every side of the fence about different issues

00:48:21.080 because, you know, that's how my parents brought me up,

00:48:23.920 you know, not to judge people.

00:48:26.160 And so it's been really, it's been kind of a hard, difficult thing for me because that's not how I was raised. And so it's, yeah, some of it's been hard to see and hard to read about.

00:48:44.120 You know, Trump in real time was trying to use her for more than just no tax on tips propaganda. And even that you could tell she was not primed on and not comfortable with. And this brings me to the very widespread allegations that Sharon Simmons is a paid plant of MAGA.

00:49:06.060 i would like to take a quick break from the show to give a big shout out to this podcast

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00:50:42.760 get back to the show. So one popular theory about Sharon that quickly circulated was that she's a 1.00

00:50:51.560 paid plant for the Trump regime. Anonymous, the hacktivist organization posted to their many

00:50:57.280 millions of Twitter followers. She's not even a DoorDash driver. She's a paid actor for Trump's

00:51:02.420 propaganda machine. And then they had a picture of Sharon Simmons at another thing. Exactly. And

00:51:09.960 this got one hundred and fifty five thousand likes. And this was one of many, many. I mean,

00:51:14.000 did you guys see the paid plan allegations? Oh, yeah. This is like the main thing I saw

00:51:18.840 after the initial news broke. Right. If you were on like lefty Internet, everyone was quickly

00:51:24.060 pointing out that, oh, well, this woman was here at this time and here at this time,

00:51:27.840 and she's been involved in other MAGA things, and they're flying her around the country. So

00:51:31.380 let's talk about that. The most frequently cited evidence for this claim is that Sharon Simmons 0.99

00:51:36.900 also appears in footage of a 2025 hearing in Nevada, where Sharon testified as a proponent 0.95

00:51:44.000 of the Big Beautiful Bill with a focus on how, as a DoorDash driver, the no tax on tips policy

00:51:49.960 would help her family. This footage was tweeted at the time by Representative David Kustoff,

00:51:56.320 a U.S. Republican representative from Tennessee, and Trump ally who was using Sharon's testimony

00:52:01.500 to support the case for the Big Beautiful Bill to pass, which they were all voting on it at the

00:52:06.260 time. Side-by-side photos of Sharon in Nevada last year and Sharon at the White House this year,

00:52:12.180 while keeping in mind she currently lives in Arkansas, have circulated widely as evidence

00:52:17.460 that she is being flown around by the Republican Party

00:52:20.460 to do propaganda for them.

00:52:22.200 And that maybe she isn't even a doordasher.

00:52:24.460 Now, I have a theory on this 0.87

00:52:26.480 that I would like to explain to you guys.

00:52:28.900 And I think this general idea that she's a paid plant

00:52:31.860 is only half true.

00:52:34.660 And I think what I understand to be the actual portrait

00:52:37.900 of what's going on here is somehow sadder.

00:52:41.940 Yeah.

00:52:43.060 So here's the thing. 0.97

00:52:44.640 Public records confirm that Sharon Simmons

00:52:46.940 did live in Boulder City, Nevada last year,

00:52:50.620 where she testified in favor of no tax on tips.

00:52:53.940 Since then, at the end of last year, I believe,

00:52:56.100 she moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas

00:52:57.980 to be closer to her 10 grandkids.

00:53:01.020 Sharon has been a doordasher for several years.

00:53:04.700 She was doordashing for three years

00:53:06.360 while she lived in Nevada

00:53:07.320 and now continues to in Arkansas.

00:53:10.240 So it isn't that she's making everything up

00:53:12.640 or that she's a recurring actress

00:53:15.180 that the GOP is flying around everywhere.

00:53:17.600 Like, she did live there in 2025

00:53:19.940 when she was testifying in Nevada.

00:53:21.960 What is true, though,

00:53:23.020 is that DoorDash planned this White House PR stunt

00:53:26.400 to advertise itself and to promote a tax policy

00:53:29.660 that benefits DoorDash as a corporation,

00:53:32.040 as we've already explained.

00:53:33.360 As far as I can tell,

00:53:34.660 someone at DoorDash found Sharon's 2025 testimony

00:53:37.880 and reached out to her

00:53:39.600 about a week before the event that just happened

00:53:42.600 to see if she was willing to be the face 1.00

00:53:45.120 of this no-tax-on-tips McDonald's delivery stunt. 0.99

00:53:48.180 I personally would be shocked 1.00

00:53:49.620 if DoorDash didn't pay her some flat rate 0.98

00:53:52.720 of maybe a few thousand dollars for making this appearance.

00:53:56.580 We have no way of fully knowing. 0.97

00:53:59.040 She is probably a paid actor in this specific instance.

00:54:02.260 I mean, she's literally essentially

00:54:03.360 just doing a commercial for them.

00:54:04.760 But only because she was identified

00:54:06.720 by someone at the company

00:54:07.980 as someone who was already willing to do DoorDash's

00:54:11.400 and the White House's dirty work.

00:54:13.220 There's no evidence that Sharon Simmons is a secretly wealthy woman or that her backstory is fabricated or that she doesn't do DoorDash or that her husband doesn't have cancer. 0.72

00:54:24.580 What's more likely, I think, is that she's for years been an exploited worker at DoorDash and through this stunt, they found a new way to exploit her all over again.

00:54:35.640 And yeah, like she's carrying water for some really horrible people and has to take responsibility for that.

00:54:43.540 But she was chosen to do that by those powerful people because she's shown herself to be vulnerable and needy in the first place. 0.95

00:54:51.360 Sharon probably received more money from this than she saved from no tax on tips.

00:54:56.380 And even still, I doubt, I doubt she's been relieved of the financial burdens of cancer treatment.

00:55:03.440 And this is why I said, like, I think the real story is sadder because she's not really a paid actor, at least not to the conspiratorial extent that people think. Ultimately, she's a poor woman living in Arkansas before and after this, whose vulnerability made her an asset to the corporation and to the government that will benefit far more from this than she will.

00:55:27.000 Yeah. So I think people are confusing being a prop, being a plant, being a paid actor with not being a real person or a person who represents the majority of Americans socioeconomic reality.

00:55:46.040 And so it is sad because it doesn't matter if Sharon is real or not, which I believe she is.

00:55:53.900 I believe she is a real person.

00:55:55.380 I believe she is not somebody who's secretly rich.

00:55:59.100 You know, we're going to see her pop up on some HBO show somewhere.

00:56:03.020 I believe she's a real person. 1.00

00:56:03.940 But there are so many Sharons in this country. 1.00

00:56:08.260 There are so many people who every day are having to worry about not just how they're going to pay for their rent and food, 1.00

00:56:14.880 but also pay for medical care. People who have gone into debt because of the cost of health care.

00:56:23.060 Older people who are working at McDonald's and Walmart and door dashing and are gig workers 0.64

00:56:29.400 because they can't afford to live and because social programs have been slashed and because 0.99

00:56:34.560 their lives are getting just more expensive and there is less support that is offered to

00:56:41.980 counteract the rising costs. I don't think we should just go, oh, she's clearly fake because

00:56:48.200 the people who this is for, they believe this or they see themselves in Sharon. They want to

00:56:55.580 believe this. So it's better if you approach by explaining why this actually does not benefit

00:57:04.080 Sharon and anyone else who sees their situation as comparable to Sharon's. You know what I mean?

00:57:12.400 Yeah. I also think that like the reason why DoorDash and the Trump administration are using

00:57:17.940 this woman is because this type of propaganda can be very effective. And you've seen this with a lot

00:57:24.560 of conservative legislative efforts, legal efforts, lobbying efforts. You see it in terms of just like

00:57:30.740 any operation that is really well-funded, but particularly with these like really detrimental

00:57:35.840 conservative efforts, what they do is they go out and they find the perfect people to represent

00:57:41.460 their cause. And then they pay to fly them around to various legislators to testify about legislation.

00:57:47.400 They put them in front of the media. They land really good interviews for them. And sometimes

00:57:52.340 those people are paid and sometimes they are able to leverage it and become kind of like a grifter. 0.99

00:57:56.540 a great example being like riley gains who was you know plucked out so that she could become the

00:58:02.280 face of like no trans athletes i don't think doordash grandma is going to be as have a

00:58:07.720 successful like grifter arc but you see this all the time and once you sort of know what to look

00:58:13.320 for you see how like big money plays into these cases by like picking up little people and using

00:58:20.620 them as the face but a lot of it is very reminiscent of astroturfing and creating the

00:58:25.800 impression that there is like organic support for these types of legislation. The opposite is true.

00:58:32.180 There's organic like unionizing and organizing efforts among DoorDash drivers, among delivery

00:58:37.740 people, among gig workers. That's not what the people with the money want you to see. They want

00:58:43.880 you to see DoorDash grandma. Yeah. And I think also for those of us who have looked at a lot

00:58:49.880 of situations like this, you start to learn that there are so many people like Sharon who become

00:58:56.300 the subjects of these situations that are really puppeteered by people much more powerful and

00:59:02.340 influential and wealthy than Sharon Simmons is. But by making some ordinary person the face of

00:59:10.940 these things, usually for the sake of relating to larger audiences of people, these people

00:59:16.800 ultimately just get exploited. Like I think this is true of a lot of people at the center of highly

00:59:22.340 politicized Supreme Court cases. Yes. These people, they just get exploited. And look, this isn't to

00:59:29.020 say that like Sharon Simmons is like I said, she's not she's not off the hook. She carried water for 0.52

00:59:33.880 some pretty evil people here. But also if you listen to that Fox News interview she did the 0.98

00:59:38.580 following day, you can tell that she's very distraught by what is now happening as a result

00:59:44.780 of the DoorDash delivery at the White House.

00:59:47.560 I gotta say, you know, she was,

00:59:50.360 what I assume is paid some amount of money 0.93

00:59:52.900 to lie about how much money she actually was able to save 1.00

00:59:57.040 with this shitty policy. 0.97

00:59:59.440 And she did what she was told, 0.99

01:00:01.240 and now she's at the center of a media storm.

01:00:03.900 She's still poor, 1.00

01:00:05.840 and she's still taking care of her husband

01:00:09.340 with stage three cancer. 0.99

01:00:10.480 And I'm just like, god damn. 0.99

01:00:13.220 Like, all the smoke, all the smoke that you have for this woman, while a fraction of it might be deserved, just, like, put it on DoorDash and put it on the White House, you know? 0.99

01:00:23.580 That, I think that's such a good point, because it goes back to what we were saying with, like, anti-tipping discourse, which is at the end of the day, so much of this sentiment just reinforces, like, stigmas against working class people.

01:00:35.360 and like at the end of the day working class people tend to be like the punching bags over

01:00:40.620 and over and over again and the labor that they do gets devalued even though it's something that 0.96

01:00:45.620 many of us have come to rely on and expect as a convenience so it's like at the end of the day

01:00:50.680 like door dash workers and anyone in these gig economies deserves to make a living wage they

01:00:57.200 don't need like some weird byzantine tax cut program that's not really going to benefit them

01:01:03.700 very much in the end. What they deserve is to make a living wage and to not have to work into your

01:01:09.440 grandma years so that your husband can afford cancer surgery. These are the systemic issues

01:01:15.880 that are wrong and no tax on tips is not going to solve them. I love having you on my podcast

01:01:21.160 because you use words like Byzantine. And if people think these jobs are so easy, 0.99

01:01:31.080 it's like, believe me, after a few shifts, you would not want to be doing this anymore.

01:01:35.820 Like you are, if you haven't done it, you're up on your feet all day, you're sweating,

01:01:39.820 you don't get time off. You have to interface with nasty people, delivery people face like

01:01:44.960 high rates of verbal harassment, sexual harassment. Like these are jobs that do deserve dignity. And

01:01:52.120 like, again, like just, they deserve to be paid fairly and DoorDash can afford to do that. 0.80

01:01:56.620 But instead of paying their workers fairly, they're paying for these really expensive PR stunts to try to shove that responsibility onto someone else. 0.66

01:02:04.520 Yes. And what Democrats, since that's the opposition party in this country, what they need to stress here is that corporations are paying poverty wages and these policymakers, which the problem is it includes a lot of the Democrats, are offering Band-Aid solutions.

01:02:21.520 So this is something that the Democrats aren't doing, but to appeal to these voters, they have to explain that this is what's happening and then show how they are fighting against that.

01:02:34.920 Yep. Tax the rich. Tax the rich, raise the corporate tax rate, like Zoran Mamdani is attempting to do here in New York City. I will end on the note of, you know, no tax on tips is most certainly not going to save us. It's not going to save workers. It has not saved Sharon Simmons. And even she seems halfway willing to admit that.

01:03:01.120 But while we are still living in this fucked up tipping culture, please tip. 0.88

01:03:07.680 I know it's annoying and ultimately everyone listening to this can make those decisions for themselves. 0.75

01:03:13.220 But my rule of thumb is just like, look, if you can pay $7 for an iced latte, you can tip 50 cents.

01:03:19.700 If you can pay $29 for, you know, a fucking $15 thing that you ordered out because DoorDash added on 1,600 different fees, which is a whole other thing. 0.98

01:03:30.460 fuck all of these companies but the bottom line is if you can pay all that money just 0.99

01:03:34.460 tip your delivery person yeah and don't be mad at the workers be mad at these corporations 1.00

01:03:40.920 and if you made three billion dollars last year you should be tipping your

01:03:45.080 delivery person at least ten thousand dollars

01:03:49.160 uh cat and caroline thank you so much for joining me on this surprise episode that we were gonna

01:03:59.180 have a blank space this week i was gonna be napping but i'm so happy we made this and i'm so

01:04:05.200 happy that i got to show off a little bit of my tax chops there you go this is for your dad

01:04:12.920 i felt kind of sexy talking about numbers like that

01:04:16.120 a bit for me listeners are like oh god is this going to be the direction of the podcast now

01:04:24.560 A Bit Finance

01:04:27.080 with Matt Bernstein

01:04:29.420 The collective groan

01:04:30.620 I just heard everyone listening to this made

01:04:32.660 I mean honestly

01:04:33.640 we kind of do need this type of finance podcast out there

01:04:37.280 because all the finance podcasts

01:04:38.880 are all these crypto

01:04:40.320 right wing bros

01:04:42.420 who are like

01:04:43.060 here's how I made a million dollars

01:04:46.280 and it's just exploiting people

01:04:48.240 How to get ahead financially

01:04:49.900 with A Bit Frugal

01:04:51.420 kat and caroline where can people find more of you i'm at spitfirenews.com that is my newsletter

01:05:02.300 and you can also follow me on blue sky and instagram and i stream on twitch in the evening

01:05:07.760 starting around six o'clock pacific time and then i'm also on twitter instagram most of these

01:05:15.000 platforms as caroline kwan thank you so much for listening to today's episode if you would like to

01:05:22.320 leave a tip you can do 20 25 or 30 i'm just kidding i'm just kidding but if you do want to

01:05:32.920 support the show you can do that over on patreon matt lieb and i have a new episode out over there

01:05:40.340 on Israel's princess of propaganda, Noah Tishby.

01:05:44.680 It's an episode I've been wanting to make for so long. 0.97

01:05:46.660 She's so infuriating. 0.99

01:05:49.220 And we did a deep dive into her.

01:05:51.120 It's up there.

01:05:51.780 The link for that will be in the episode description.

01:05:54.200 I love you so much.

01:05:55.840 Happy tax season.

01:05:57.900 And until now, I don't know.

01:06:01.480 And until next time, stay fruity.

A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein - April 17, 2026

The Truth About DoorDash Grandma

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