'Poison' — and Trump’s favorite bev: HHS secretary faces resistance in push to 'Make America Healthy'

03 March

Former Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under President Donald Trump, is taking aim at carbonated soft drinks. As part of his Make American Healthy Again Campaign, RFK Jr. is pushing for soft drinks to be excluded from food aid programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

But according to Wall Street Journal reporters Kristina Peterson, Josh Dawsey and Laura Cooper, he is facing some obstacles — from beverage companies to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) officials who believe the proposal would be difficult to implement.

Moreover, Trump is, they note, a major consumer of Diet Coke.

In an article published on March 3, the WSJ journalists explain, "Robert F. Kennedy Jr. calls it 'poison.' President Trump has multiple cans of it every day. Welcome to the 2025 soda wars. At both state and federal levels, the Kennedy-led Make America Healthy Again movement is backing efforts to prevent people from spending food-aid benefits on sugary, carbonated beverages. Now, they are gaining momentum with an administration led by a man who enjoys soda so much that he had a red button installed on his desk for a valet to bring him a Diet Coke."

Peterson, Dawsey and Cooper note that in the past, "liberal-leaning states" like New York and Minnesota tried to "strip soda from state food-aid programs" but encountered resistance from the USDA — which maintained that doing so would be difficult and complicated.

In 2025, however, right-wing Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is on board with that proposal.

Sanders told WSJ, "Nobody is anti-Diet Coke. Nobody is anti-soft drink. I like a soft drink, too. It's whether or not the government should be paying for it."

Read the full Wall Street Journal article at this link (subscription required).

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