A rumor that U.S. President Donald Trump made a comment during a speech about washing hands, hair and "a third item in the bathroom" circulated online in mid-November 2025.
Social media users on X (archived), Facebook, Instagram and Threads (archived) claimed that Trump spoke about restrictions on water that "comes from Heaven" and how such limitations impacted what can be done in the bathroom. Some users said the president followed the bathroom comment with: "If you don't know what I'm talking about then you shouldn't be owning a McDonald's franchise."
For example, one X user quoted Trump as saying (archived):
They had restrictions on water. It comes down from heaven, right? So you want to wash your hands, or like me, you want to wash your hair. I lather up. And there's no water. I won't mention the third item in the bathroom because I always get criticized. If you don't know what I'm talking about then you shouldn't be owning a McDonald's franchise.
In short, the quote was correctly attributed to Trump. The X user above cut out some of his words, seemingly for brevity, but did not change the essence of his remarks.
The president was the keynote speaker for the 2025 McDonald's Impact Summit, an annual meeting of the fast food chain's franchise owners, suppliers and executives, on Nov. 17, and said the quote during his address.
The entire speech was available to watch on the White House's official YouTube channel, with the quote in question starting at the 35:47 mark.
The passage in its full context went as follows:
Upon taking office, I signed an order requiring that for every new regulation, 10 old job-killing regulations have to be eliminated. So if we put in a new regulation, then we get rid of 10. Otherwise you don't get the new regulation. And you know, we got rid of the drip-drip water. We call it the drip-drip, where it drip-drips out of the sink. States with tremendous water, so much water they have nothing but problems getting rid — they had restrictions on water. It comes down from heaven, right? They had restrictions on water.
So you want to wash your hands? Or, like me, I want to wash my hair. I lather up. And I turn that … there's no water. The water's, drip. They call it. They put a restrictor on. I won't mention the third item in the bathroom because I always get criticized. I used to mention that but I don't mention it anymore, because you know what I … I think you do. If you don't know what I'm talking about then you shouldn't be owning a McDonald's franchise. You wouldn't do well even with a McDonald's franchise.
The White House said via email that Trump was referring to an executive order from April 9, 2025, that sought to undo "the left's war on water pressure" and "free" the public "from excessive regulations that turned a basic household item into a bureaucratic nightmare."
The "third item in the bathroom" Trump referenced seemingly was the toilet. The White House declined to specify and instead said: "Off record — if you can't figure out the third item in a bathroom after showers and sinks, you're an idiot." (Snopes did not agree to speak off the record, per journalistic standards, before this comment was made.)
McDonald's did not respond to a request for comment as of this writing. We will update this article if we get a reply.
Trump's remarks at the event were primarily about the economy, with digressions about water pressure, military strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities, the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico and his love of McDonald's products, Reuters reported.