RFK Jr.: Obesity And Chronic Disease Crisis Is “Spiritual Warfare”
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy told FNC’s Peter Doocy on “The Sunday Briefing” about the federal government’s stance on preventing chronic disease. “This is spiritual warfare. This is a spiritual malaise,” Kennedy said. “This is warfare. If a foreign enemy or adversary did this to our country, we would consider it an act of war. We are poisoning our children at scale, at a cellular level, and it needs to stop.”
ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: They gave Mike Tyson a script. The script wasn’t working, and he just started talking. It was an extraordinary, powerful ad. I think it’s the most important ad in Super Bowl history, because it’s a crisis, Peter, that’s existential. Seventy-seven percent of our kids cannot qualify for military service. Obesity is off the charts. Thirty-eight percent of American teens are diabetic or prediabetic. And the cost to our country is ruinous. When my uncle was president, we spent a fraction of what we spend today on chronic disease. Now we spend $ 3.4 trillion a year, and it’s growing faster than anything else in the budget, and it’s going to bankrupt us. This is spiritual warfare. This is a spiritual malaise which affects mental health. Despite what The New York Times says, there are 75 years of peer-reviewed science showing that improving your health improves even the symptoms of schizophrenia, ADHD, and bipolar disorder. When you give people in prison real food, violence goes down by 40 percent. The use of restraints goes down by 75 percent. Food is affecting everything that we do. This is warfare. If a foreign enemy or adversary did this to our country, we would consider it an act of war. We are poisoning our children at scale, at a cellular level, and it needs to stop. The Trump administration does not believe in being a nanny state. It’s not going to tell you that you cannot buy doughnuts. If you want to buy doughnuts, you should be able to do that. We live in America. Americans have to be the CEO of their own health. They have to take control of it. We are equipping them with the tools to do that. We’re telling them what the science says. We’re telling them what kinds of food they should be eating. It’s up to everybody to do that, and it’s really going to be a civics project from now on. PETER DOOCY, FOX NEWS: If there’s one thing that’s changed a year into the Trump administration, it’s that people are looking more closely at the ingredients in the food they’re eating and what they’re giving their kids. It’s Super Bowl Sunday. It’s a snacking holiday in the U.S. You are, as the CEO of MAHA, what would you have as a Super Bowl snack? ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: I’m on a carnivore diet, so I just eat meat and ferments, and I’m very happy with that. I’ll probably have yogurt. People can eat what they want to eat. They can eat Buffalo wings, but you should check the ingredients. There are a lot of seed oils, corn syrup, artificial flavors. You probably shouldn’t be eating those. I want to say this: Marty Makary, who has done an extraordinary job at the FDA, has approved six new vegetable dyes. We’ve changed the rules so manufacturers can say all natural if they use those dyes. Virtually the entire industry has pledged to get off the nine petroleum-based synthetic dyes that are absolutely destroying public health in this country by the end of this year. There are healthy alternatives now. You don’t have to punish yourself with your diet. You should pay attention to it. PETER DOOCY, FOX NEWS: So to the viewer who wrote in asking if Buffalo wings are MAHA-approved, the HHS secretary says Buffalo wings are okay. ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: Well, there are Buffalo wings, and there are Buffalo wings. You’ve got to look at the ingredients. If I can say this, Mike Tyson-I want to thank him for his courage and honesty in doing this ad. This week, Brooke Rollins and I are doing a big event at HHS to show Americans how they can eat affordably, and what we’re doing to make whole foods and real foods accessible and affordable to every American family. PETER DOOCY, FOX NEWS: You mentioned fermented food. Is it true that you cook a steak at 6:30 in the morning with sauerkraut? ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: I eat it with sauerkraut, yeah. I eat some kind of meat probably twice a day. PETER DOOCY, FOX NEWS: When you’re eating steak and sauerkraut at 6:30 in the morning, what is your wife Cheryl eating? ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: She’s a vegetarian. She eats some fish. She’s a very good cook, and she cooks for the whole family. She eats good food, mainly a Mediterranean diet. PETER DOOCY, FOX NEWS: We gave our three-year-old daughter some sauerkraut one day, and the next day when we didn’t give it to her, she asked for it. We went to the store and it was sold out. ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: That’s a good sign. It’s hard being a parent today. Kids are surrounded not only by cell phones and social media, but by constant assaults on their mental and physical health. It’s the hardest time in history to be a good parent. Giving your children fermented food supports their microbiome, which affects mental health, boosts immune systems, and improves metabolic energy. PETER DOOCY, FOX NEWS: TrumpRx.gov launched this week. There are big discounts, mostly for weight-loss and fertility drugs. Joe Biden said for years it was illegal for the federal government to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies. Could this have been done years ago? ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: It should have been done. Every president promised to do it. Compared to Europe, we were paying two, three, four, even 15 times more for the same drug made in factories in New Jersey. Thanks to President Trump’s vision, courage, and relentlessness, we were able to leverage tariffs and negotiate in good faith with 16 of the 17 pharmaceutical companies. Americans are going to be paying the lowest prices in the world for pharmaceuticals they were previously paying the highest prices for.






