This is an adapted excerpt from the Nov. 19 episode of “The Beat with Ari Melber.“
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a known critic of processed foods. In the past, he’s even likened a fast-food diet to poison. But now, as he continues jockeying for the job of health and human services secretary in the next administration, President-elect Donald Trump is making him publicly eat his words.
In a now-viral photo posted by Donald Trump Jr. to X, Kennedy can be seen holding a McDonald’s burger with the president-elect and some of his favored allies aboard a private plane.
Make America Healthy Again starts TOMORROW. 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/LLzr5S9ugf
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) November 17, 2024
Kennedy looks sad, and according to Trump veterans, like former Trump White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews, that embarrassment is the point.
The photo may have been Trump’s way of responding to Kennedy’s recent public rebuke of his diet. “Campaign food is always bad,” Kennedy said last week on “The Joe Polish Show” podcast. “But the food that goes onto that airplane is like just poison. You have a choice between — you don’t have the choice, you’re either given KFC or Big Macs.”
Kennedy didn’t look like he had much of a choice in the photo, but House Speaker Mike Johnson confirmed that Kennedy ate “some of the McDonalds.”
“I am not sure if I should say that, but I think he did,” Johnson told reporters.








