Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has attempted to airbrush an embarrassing moment from his history with cringeworthy results.
The 71-year-old posted a Thanksgiving photo on X on Thursday, showing himself with President Donald Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr., House Speaker Mike Johnson and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
The smiling Republicans are pictured on Trump Force One with an extensive Thanksgiving feast in front of them, complete with turkey, vegetables and pumpkin pie.
However, RFK Jr.’s post is actually a digitally-altered version of a picture from November last year, if the presence of Musk did not give that away. In the original photo, posted by Donald Trump Jr. on his social media, everyone is eating fast food from McDonald’s, rather than a healthy feast. The photo was also posted by Trump’s then-deputy director of communications for his campaign, Margo Martin, who now serves as special assistant to the president and as a communications adviser.
The attempt drew criticism on social media, with one user slamming X’s AI chatbot Grok, which was developed by Musk, for including the post as top news on its platform.
“Thanks for pointing this out. The story was a generated summary from trending posts, but upon verification, no reliable sources confirm a Thanksgiving meal on Air Force One with those individuals today. The image appears AI-generated. We’ll work on better filtering for accuracy,” it responded. “Happy Thanksgiving!”
Even Jacob Chansley, better known as the QAnon Shaman, appeared unimpressed at the image. “Everything is fake…” an X post read. Others responded with various memes and comments poking fun at the fake image.
Despite his attempt at Making MAGA Healthy Again with his reworked picture, the 2024 photo saw the Health Secretary awkwardly holding a burger with a bottle of Coca-Cola next to him.
The Daily Beast has contacted Kennedy’s office for comment.
Last year, Johnson revealed that health freak Kennedy actually ate the fast-food meal in front of him.
“I think he did actually eat some of the McDonalds,” Johnson said. “I am not sure if I should say that, but I think he did.”
Trump Jr. said the McMAGA photo came after the group left a UFC event at Madison Square Garden and decided to make a 3 a.m. McDonald’s stop.
“We got back on the plane…Bobby did have, have some McDonald’s,” Trump Jr. said. “We definitely had some fun with that one. The memes about it, I mean, he definitely looks like he got his hand caught in the cookie jar with that one.”
“We joked, ‘MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) starts on Monday.’ Like all good diets, you’ve got to have a cheat day once in a while. People just had a good time with it.”
President Trump has made no secret of his love of McDonald’s. Earlier this month, he told a gathering of executives from the fast food chain, “No matter who you are, everybody loves something at McDonald’s. There’s always something to have.”
He even suggested an alteration for one of his favorite items on the menu, the Filet-O-Fish “You could do a little bit more tartar sauce, though, please. Seriously. Do you understand that?”
The Health and Human Services Secretary has been outspoken about his hatred for seed oils, which are used in a lot of fast food production, and food dies, claiming they are “poisoning” Americans. He prefers food to be cooked in beef tallow.
Earlier this year, his wife, Cheryl Hines, revealed his strict diet of only meat and fermented vegetables.
“In the morning at 6:30 a.m., he’s cooking a steak and eating sauerkraut,” The Curb Your Enthusiasm star said on The Katie Miller Show podcast.
Hines said the diet stretches beyond their house. “He’s so dedicated to this diet that he’s eating that he will bring his own sauerkraut to the restaurant.”
During the interview, Miller mentioned sitting next to RFK Jr. at a dinner where he did not eat a thing.
“He’s waiting. He eats only a specific thing,” Hines explained. “And if it’s not there at the party, then he waits until he gets home. And if he’s going out to dinner, he brings his own.”
As part of his Make America Health Again mission this year, Kennedy has promoted regular exercise and has blamed sick people for their “choices” and lectured Americans about getting “fit, not fat.”
President Trump, a fan of Diet Coke, said in July he had been talking to the soft drink manufacturer about “using REAL Cane Sugar in Coke in the United States” and that they had agreed to.
The drinks are traditionally made using the cheaper corn syrup over sugar in the U.S., compared to other parts of the world.
However the soda manufacturer’s Chief Financial Officer John Murphy told Bloomberg last month that the move to replace corn syrup had been stymied by the key ingredient’s limited availability in the U.S.
“It’s going to be a measured roll-out,” Murphy said. “There is only a certain amount of cane sugar available in the United States.”
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