Make America Healthy Again? Photo of RFK Jr. eating McDonald’s with Trump goes viral

A photo of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. eating McDonald’s with President-elect Donald Trump went viral just days after Kennedy labeled campaign food as “poison.”
Trump tapped Kennedy last week to lead the Health and Human Services Department, following through on his campaign promise to allow Kennedy to “Make America Healthy Again” in his second administration.
Just days after Trump announced his intent to nominate Kennedy, Donald Trump Jr. shared a photo of himself, Trump, Kennedy, tech billionaire Elon Musk and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) eating McDonald’s on a plane. Kennedy was spotted with a burger and a soda.
The photo quickly went viral—with many pointing out Kennedy’s comments from just days earlier labelling Trump’s campaign food as “poison” during an interview on “The Joe Polish Show,” first highlighted by The Daily Beast.
“Campaign food is always bad, but the food that goes onto that airplane is, like, just poison,” Kennedy said on the episode that aired last week. “You have a choice between — you don’t have the choice, you’re either given KFC or Big Macs.”
Trump has famously touted his love for McDonald’s and has frequently been seen posing with Big Macs and making campaign stops at the fast-food chain. However, Kennedy has frequently criticized fast food and has advocated against the use of additives in many foods.
The photo of Kennedy was quickly circulated online with many users pointing out the irony.
“Make America Healthy Again lasted less than a Scaramucci,” journalist Aaron Rupar quipped.
Another user wrote: “Nothing says I’m going to Make America Healthy Again and take on big food corporations like posing for a picture with a Big Mac.”
Meanwhile, CNN’s morning crew laughed at the photo on Monday morning in comments highlighted earlier by Mediaite. CNN anchor Kasie Hunt said Kennedy does not look like “a man who’s like thrilled to be there” while political analyst Alex Thompson joked that it looked like a “hostage video.”
Kennedy has pushed against processed foods and the use of herbicides like Roundup weed killer. He has long criticized the large commercial farms and animal feeding operations that dominate the industry.
But he is perhaps best known for his criticism of childhood vaccines.
Again and again, Kennedy has made his opposition to vaccines clear. In July, he said in a podcast interview that “There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective” and told FOX News that he still believes in the long-ago debunked idea that vaccines can cause autism.
In a 2021 podcast he urged people to “resist” CDC guidelines that advise when kids should receive routine vaccinations.
“I see somebody on a hiking trail carrying a little baby and I say to him, ‘Better not get them vaccinated,’” Kennedy said.
Repeated scientific studies in the U.S. and abroad have found no link between vaccines and autism. Vaccines have been proven safe and effective in laboratory testing and in real world use in hundreds of millions of people over decades. The World Health Organization credits childhood vaccines with preventing as many as 5 million deaths a year.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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