RFK Jr.’s New Podcast Is as Weird as You’d Expect | WIRED

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Last month, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. launched a podcast, which he said would be part of a “new era of radical transparency in government.” In a teaser, Kennedy promised, over foreboding background music, to “ask the questions and lift the taboos and expose the hypocrisy” around the root causes of the chronic disease epidemic.

“For decades now, Americans have been told that we should trust the system, but our children are sicker,” he said in the video. “Chronic disease is exploding, and the answers that we've been given aren't working. Many of us have come to the conclusion that government actually lies to us.” His podcast, he said, would feature conversations with independent doctors, scientists, and leaders in medical innovation and research.

The launch of The Secretary Kennedy Podcast—not to be confused with The RFK Jr. Podcast, which covered similar ground—comes amid signs of trouble in the MAHA movement. Kennedy has reportedly been told by the White House to tone down his anti-vaccine rhetoric ahead of the midterm elections, and his MAHA PAC is apparently running low on cash. President Donald Trump recently dropped health influencer and close Kennedy ally Casey Means as his nominee for surgeon general, and Kennedy’s panel of hand-picked vaccine advisers has been disbanded after a federal judge ruled they were unqualified.

Coincidentally or not, Kennedy steers clear of vaccines in the first two podcast episodes and instead focuses on food, leaning into celebrity over policy. HHS did not respond to a request for comment.

In the first episode, Kennedy interviews reality-TV chef Robert Irvine about his makeover of military food at Fort Hood, an Army base in Texas. Irvine was the host of the popular Food Network show Dinner: Impossible when a newspaper investigation found that he had embellished parts of his résumé, including that he had created Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s wedding cake. Irvine admitted to exaggerating his qualifications and was initially dropped by the network but was eventually brought back. (Irvine also happens to have a line of snack bars called FitCrunch; while protein-packed, they’re also made with the sort of difficult-to-pronounce ingredients many nutritionists caution against.)

Irvine did serve in the UK’s Royal Navy after enlisting at a young age, and he began his culinary career there. On the podcast, he tells Kennedy he’s been working with the US military to bring in healthier dining options with a focus on fresh and whole foods. He claims he’s helping to lower food costs by negotiating with suppliers—something the Pentagon has presumably not thought of doing—and that the dining hall food at Fort Hood is so good there are “lines out the door.”

Irvine doesn’t address what kinds of foods Fort Hood was serving before he stepped in nor does he elaborate on the meals it offers now, beyond lower-sodium chicken and sliced melon.

The privately run dining venture, called 42 Bistro, was the subject of an Army press release in February, which showed pictures of bean salads and deli sandwiches. (Irvine also worked with the military under the Biden administration to roll out healthy grab-and-go meals, a detail that isn’t mentioned in the podcast.)

Irvine goes on to suggest that individuals can eat better and healthier if they’re smarter with their money. “We talk about food being expensive. If you're buying expensive food, it’s expensive. But if you're buying food, and you know what to do with it, it’s not expensive,” he says.

The statement, while true to a point, ignores the fact that food costs are set to increase this year by almost 3 percent and that a diet rich in animal protein, which is featured prominently in the administration's new inverted food pyramid, is getting more expensive. The US Department of Agriculture estimates that beef and veal prices were more than 12 percent higher in March than in March 2025, while poultry prices were up 1.5 percent over the same time period. Fresh vegetable prices, meanwhile, were 7.5 percent higher in March compared to a year earlier.

Irvine says a main barrier to eating healthy is education, joking that he didn’t know about okra and avocados growing up in England. While partly right, he and Kennedy fail to mention other important factors like cost, access, and a lack of time for meal preparation. Packaged and ultra-processed foods are popular because they are more convenient, have a long shelf life, and are a cheap source of calories. And research continues to show that many adults still eat these foods despite knowing they shouldn’t.

The second episode of Kennedy’s podcast is just 15 minutes long and features professional boxer Mike Tyson, who appeared in a MAHA-aligned Super Bowl ad for “real food.” Kennedy introduces Tyson, who was convicted in 1992 of raping a teenager and served