Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has been nominated to lead the Health and Human Services department, may have to get used to fast food if he serves in the administration.
Kennedy was pictured holding what appeared to be a Big Mac while seated at a table on the “Trump Force One” airplane as he, President-elect Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Donald Trump Jr. prepared to dig into a McDonald’s feast. House Speaker Mike Johnson was also in the photo but wasn’t seated.
On Sunday, Trump Jr. posted a photo of the gathering on X, saying “Make America Healthy Again starts TOMORROW,” presumably after everyone is done eating their burgers and fries.
https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1858136498530374074
While Trump is famously fond of McDonald’s and even dished out fries at one franchise during his campaign, Kennedy has advocated healthy eating while he also has been an anti-vaccine activist and a critic of fluoride in drinking water.
As far as his own eating habits, RFK Jr. has said he avoids processed foods but recently lamented the limited options available while campaigning and traveling.
“Campaign food is always bad, but the food that goes onto that airplane is, like, just poison,” he told podcaster Joe Polish last week. “You have a choice between — you don’t have the choice. You’re either given KFC or Big Macs.”
And that’s if you’re “lucky,” Kennedy added, as “the rest of the stuff I consider kind of inedible.”
The Trump transition team didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
On Saturday night, Kennedy joined Trump, Musk, Johnson, and Trump Jr. to watch a UFC fight at Madison Square Garden, where the former and soon-to-be president was greeted with cheers.
Meanwhile, RFK Jr.’s nomination as Health and Human Services secretary has greeted with a lot of push-back as well as fears of a mass culling of federal workers and agencies Kennedy deems unnecessary.
But Dan Troy, a former chief counsel for the FDA during President George W. Bush’s first term, said there’s unlikely to be “seismic changes” within the agency.
“Who are you going to put in place?” he told Reuters. “Who has the technical expertise to write these rules that are going to really change the paradigm?”