White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt says Donald Trump really “gets” MAHA moms despite his own eating habits representing everything they stand against.
In an interview with Politico, Leavitt was asked how the president reconciles his own administration’s Make America Healthy Again dietary advice with the fact that the 79-year-old regularly gorges on fast food.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the anti-vax crusader leading the MAHA movement, even told The Katie Miller Podcast that “I don’t know how he’s alive,” given that the president constantly eats “really bad food,” including McDonald’s and candy.
“The president has his own personal habits, but he understands the movement and the power behind all of these moms who have united in pushing for a real public health change, and he fully supports it and gets it,” Leavitt said, referencing the “MAHA moms” push to allow public schools to offer whole milk and 2 percent milk.
“He’s also a huge believer in choice for parents in parental decision-making, whether it comes to education or health. He knows that parents are the people best suited to make decisions for their kids, and he fully empowers that mentality,” she added.
Trump’s love of fast food—especially McDonald’s—and his unhealthy eating habits have been well chronicled throughout his political career.
During his first term in the White House, the president opted to eat in his White House bedroom, rather than the dining room, author Michael Wolff told the Daily Beast’s Inside Trump’s Head podcast last November.
“In the bed, I suppose,” Wolff told host Joanna Coles. “Perhaps he’s been more socialized, he’s had a lot of time now, but when he originally got there, it really sounded like he was like the feral child.”
In 2017, Trump’s former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski wrote in Let Trump Be Trump: “On Trump Force One, there were four major food groups: McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, pizza, and Diet Coke.”
Republican National Committee Chairman Joe Gruters later described his shock that Trump’s palate had not matured during the 2024 campaign.
Gruters recalled flying with Trump to a campaign event, during which the president devoured French fries, a Quarter Pounder, a Big Mac, and a Filet-O-Fish.
“I had two of the sandwiches and I was as sick as a dog for 24 hours,” Gruters told the Chambers, Changes, and Conversations podcast in October. “How does a guy who’s as senior as him get away with eating all this McDonald’s on a consistent basis?”
Trump also routinely guzzles Diet Coke and loves it so much that he has a button installed on the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office that he presses whenever he wants one delivered.
During his appearance on The Katie Miller Podcast—hosted by the wife of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller—Kennedy insisted that Trump eats healthier when he is at the White House or Mar-a-Lago but turns to fast food while traveling.
“If you travel with him, you get this idea he is pumping himself full of poison all day long, and you don’t know how he’s walking around, much less being the most energetic person any of us have ever met,” Kennedy said.
