Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered a lighthearted rejection of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s eating habits, declaring that he has no intention of traveling the globe with containers of sauerkraut — while simultaneously mounting an enthusiastic defense of the Pop-Tart.
Rubio, appearing alongside his wife, Jeanette, on “The Katie Miller Podcast,” was asked by host Katie Miller about Kennedy’s reported preference for a diet heavy on red meat and fermented vegetables.
“This is a crazy diet,” Rubio said in jest. “This is a diet that consists of eating sauerkraut and meat. Now you understand, like, this is not a sustainable thing … He has to travel with coolers of sauerkraut! I’m not going to travel the world with a cooler full of sauerkraut. It’s ridiculous. I can’t do it.”
Rubio made clear that his culinary objections did not extend to Kennedy’s broader “Make America Healthy Again,” or MAHA, movement, which he said he supports. His wife, however, quickly complicated his effort to portray himself as supportive of healthy eating by bringing up his fondness for Pop-Tarts.
“No, I don’t eat Pop-Tarts every day,” Rubio said.
“You eat sweets,” Jeanette said.
Rubio then offered a spirited defense of the packaged toaster pastry, portraying it as something closer to an achievement of American ingenuity than a questionable breakfast choice.
“The Pop-Tart is one of the great American innovations in the history of the world, if you think about it. It comes in this beautiful foil package,” Rubio joked.
His wife was not persuaded by the argument.
“He eats all the things you should not be eating. Like every single thing,” Jeanette insisted.
Fox News Digital contacted Kennedy and Mars Inc., the owner of Pop-Tarts, seeking comment on the exchange, but neither immediately responded.
The playful discussion comes as Rubio continues to be mentioned as a possible contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2028, when the party will choose a potential successor to President Donald Trump.
A recent poll in New Hampshire showed Rubio trailing Vice President JD Vance by only 10 percentage points in a hypothetical 2028 Republican matchup, placing the secretary of state among the prominent figures already being discussed as possible candidates.
Rubio has also developed an unusual presence in online political culture, particularly after a photograph of him sitting on a couch in the Oval Office during Trump’s 2025 meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy became the basis for a widely circulated internet meme.
After months of seeing altered versions of the photograph spread across social media, Rubio finally discussed the phenomenon during an appearance last month on Fox News’ “My View with Lara Trump.”
“The meme thing, it was interesting because when it first came out, I hated that picture,” Rubio said. “Because what happened is in that couch, if you don’t have a pillow behind your back, you kind of sink. So, I looked at the picture; I said, ‘Oh, this is terrible,’ I looked like whatever. And then it turned into this other thing. And it was fine, and it’s funny.”
Rubio said he does not spend much time tracking the seemingly endless variations of the meme, although friends and colleagues regularly make sure he sees some of them.
“I don’t really follow it very closely, but people have shown me pictures out there,” he added. “We have a good friend here that works at the White House, Dan Scavino, made a nice board for me. And even since he made that board, we had to update it, so — of all the different pictures. So that stuff is funny.”
