Just over the past week, the nation has confronted a series of discouraging headlines about public health challenges, from numbers of measles cases unseen in a generation to an egg recall due to potential salmonella contamination to a cyclosporiasis outbreak that sickened thousands of Americans.
With developments like these, it stands to reason that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would be awfully busy. And yet he’s apparently found time to host a new celebrity cooking show. Although this might seem hard to believe, USA Today reported:
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is putting his cooking skills to the test with celebrity chefs to motivate Americans to eat healthy.
Kennedy is launching “The Real Food Show,” a new cooking series on July 30, to help translate the new Dietary Guidelines for Americans into easy, affordable meals they can prepare at home, he said in an exclusive sit-down interview with USA TODAY.
The program will apparently be broadcast online at the HHS website.
It was just last month when The New York Times reported that RFK Jr. “has shown little interest” in the day-to-day to work at the department he ostensibly leads, including a work schedule in which he arrives late and leaves early. The secretary pushed back aggressively against the idea that he’s “checked out,” but turning his attention to starring in cooking videos probably won’t help his reputation.
I’m also struck by the degree to which Kennedy’s new gambit fits into a broader pattern. Just two weeks into Trump’s second term, Axios published a report noting that the Republican administration’s immigration crackdown included an emphasis on “choreography” and “wardrobe changes.” A White House official conceded at the time that the focus on “the visuals” was deliberate.
The New York Times added that enforcement efforts surrounding the administration’s immigration policies were packaged “like mini reality-TV shows — complete with perp walks and even guest stars.” In the months that followed, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem appeared so preoccupied with camera-ready optics that some started referring to the administration’s “Department of Homeland Publicity.”
More recently, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, himself a former Fox News host and reality-show participant, announced that he and his family starred in a controversial reality series to be aired on YouTube.
With his own celebrity cooking show, Kennedy is reinforcing concerns that Trump administration officials look less like an executive branch and more like a theater troupe that’s principally concerned with putting on a good show.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
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