RFK Jr. is mad that he can’t bully poor people by playing soda police

Recently appointed Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has ambitious plans for President Donald Trump’s administration—so much so that instead of addressing the escalating crises within his own department, he’s preoccupied with meddling in others.

On Thursday, Politico reported that Kennedy’s initiative to ban food stamp recipients from purchasing soda is encountering significant resistance. The primary concern? The Health and Human Services Department does not have authority over the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The food stamp program known as SNAP falls under the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which already has its hands full trying to manage eggflation.

Kennedy has plenty on his plate, too, between ongoing measles outbreaks and the consequences of slashing billions in COVID-19-related funding for state and local health departments. But maybe Kennedy’s brain worm is handling those crises while the health secretary moonlights as the soda police.

Since joining Trump’s Cabinet, Kennedy and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins have seemingly agreed that SNAP benefits shouldn’t be used to buy items contributing to obesity. But according to Politico, USDA officials are frustrated with Kennedy’s overreach, contributing to existing tension within Trump’s inner circle—especially among those promoting his and Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda.

“Rollins and Kennedy, they’ve both talked about this issue,” one USDA staffer told the outlet. “However, [HHS] is flying solo. It just doesn’t help to find a joint pathway forward

Despite the reported discontent at USDA, Kennedy’s team has privately encouraged state officials to seek federal restrictions on soda purchases for SNAP recipients—a program that aids over 42 million individuals but remains a prime target for Republican budget cuts.

Publicly, both departments have tried to downplay the infighting. Privately, though, they’re anything but aligned. Politico reported that USDA officials are wary of Kennedy’s direct outreach to governors and state lawmakers, while Kennedy’s camp believes Rollins’ team is deliberately slow-walking the soda ban.

In a statement to Politico, USDA spokesperson Audra Weeks dismissed allegations that Rollins’ agency is obstructing the initiative.

“Where improvements can be made to encourage healthier decisions and healthier outcomes, the Department stands ready to support those improvements,” she said. “This notion that USDA is obstructing is nothing more than inside-the-beltway nonsense.”

Kennedy first proposed the idea of banning certain products, including candy and soda, for SNAP users back in February, when he was first confirmed as health secretary.

“The one place that I would say that we need to really change policy is the SNAP program and food stamps and in school lunches,” Kennedy told Fox News host Laura Ingraham. “There, the federal government in many cases is paying for it. And we shouldn’t be subsidizing people to eat poison.”

Related | RFK Jr. continues to show he's really bad at his job

Let’s hope this food police nonsense fizzles out. But if Kennedy and Rollins can manage to set their egos aside and hammer out an agreement, it would be the first instance of a presidential administration approving a ban on specific food items for SNAP recipients. Several Republican-led states have already pushed legislation to limit food stamp purchases of “junk food,” yet no federal ban has ever been successfully implemented.

There’s a reason for that, though. These piecemeal bans fail to address the bigger issue: Healthier food options remain prohibitively expensive (with grocery prices projected to rise even more this year). Furthermore, altering SNAP’s food requirements isn’t as straightforward as it may seem, particularly in the absence of established precedents.

“There are very real feasibility concerns about these types of proposals and how a state would actually implement a project like this,” Katie Bergh, a senior policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told Politico. “This is something that in reality tends to be much more complicated than it seems at first blush.”

Hopefully, the policy challenges prove just intricate enough to keep Kennedy and Rollins spinning their wheels, consumed by bureaucracy and red tape, before moving on to the next dumb idea.