Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wasn’t much of a lucky duck while unveiling new—and unsurprisingly questionable—dietary guidelines on Wednesday.
The health and human services secretary was in the midst of announcing his topsy-turvy new food pyramid, which prioritizes red meat and dairy, when a loud, sharp quack rang out in the briefing room.
Kennedy, 71, sheepishly pulled out his iPhone to silence his duck ringtone. “Sorry, everybody,” he told a crowd of laughing reporters.
Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins made an effort to save her fellow Cabinet member from the faux pas. “Duck is also high in protein,” she quipped. “Duck is a good thing to eat, everybody!”
The political scion then handed off his phone to Trump lackey Dr. Mehmet Oz—the Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) administrator and former reality star—who answered the call on the health secretary’s behalf as Kennedy attempted to power through the remainder of his remarks.
Kennedy’s bizarre ringtone sounded just as he mandated that Americans embrace red meat, despite years of research suggesting that excessive consumption can be harmful.
He is also known to have a curious—and at times downright sinister—relationship with animals. During his botched presidential campaign, Kennedy was forced into damage control over allegations that he dumped the body of a bear cub in New York City’s Central Park in 2014, an incident that prompted a police investigation into animal cruelty.
Before he was confirmed as health secretary, his cousin Caroline Kennedy, JFK’s daughter, wrote an open letter to Congress describing how he enjoyed showing off how he put baby chickens and mice into a blender to feed his hawks.
“It was often a perverse scene of despair and violence,” she recalled.
The document containing Kennedy’s new guidelines also, ill-advisedly, instructs Americans to cook with butter, beef, and other foods high in saturated fat.
The New York Times reported that two of the scientific experts Kennedy personally selected to oversee the guideline changes have significant conflicts of interest, including receiving funding from—or advising—the beef and dairy industries, as well as working with processed food giants Kraft and Nestlé.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the Department of Health and Human Services for comment.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, common sense, scientific integrity, and accountability have been restored to federal food and health policy,” DHS wrote in an X post.
“For decades, the Dietary Guidelines favored corporate interests over common-sense, science-driven advice to improve the health of Americans.”
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