Secretary of State Marco Rubio broke ranks with the Trump administration's health-food movement on a podcast this week, calling RFK Jr.'s carnivore diet "crazy" and declaring his own loyalty to Pop-Tarts.
Rubio and his wife Jeanette sat down with Katie Miller, wife of White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, on "The Katie Miller Podcast" Tuesday for a wide-ranging conversation that turned into a good-natured roast of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s strict eating habits. Asked whether he had adopted Kennedy's regimen of meat and fermented vegetables, Rubio told Miller flatly that he had not.
"No! This is a crazy diet," Rubio said. "This is a diet that consists of eating sauerkraut and meat. Now you understand, like this is not a sustainable thing."
The top diplomat added that Kennedy's commitment to the plan requires hauling fermented cabbage across the globe, a logistics challenge Rubio wants no part of.
"I'm not going to travel the world with a cooler full of sauerkraut."
"It's ridiculous. I can't do it," he said.
When Miller asked what Rubio actually eats, Jeanette Rubio stepped in before her husband could spin the answer. She offered a single word: "Pop-Tarts." She added that Rubio eats "sweets", a detail the secretary of state did not dispute.
Rubio leaned into the confession. He called Pop-Tarts "one of the great American innovations in the history of the world." Miller asked whether Rubio was on board with Kennedy's Make America Healthy Again agenda. Jeanette cut in again.
"No, he is not. He is completely not," she said.
Rubio, whose political standing within the GOP has been rising, tried to walk the line. He insisted he is "in favor" of MAHA, just not willing to live by its dietary rules.
"The point is... I'm not against this diet. I'm not asking that we ban it. I encourage people to try it. I'm just saying it's not for everyone."
The secretary of state explained that his skepticism comes from personal experience. Roughly five years ago, he tried the keto diet and described the sugar withdrawal as a "near-psychotic event." He joked about what might have happened if the crash had hit while he was on the job.
"Mr. President, we must bomb, you know, Paraguay," Rubio said, mimicking a sugar-deprived version of himself. Asked why, his fictional self answered: "I don't know, I'm just really mad. I haven't had any sugar."
Miller and Jeanette both laughed. The exchange captured the loose, personal tone of the interview, a side of Rubio that rarely surfaces during his day job overseeing what he described as the administration's effort to rework U.S. foreign intervention measures.
Rubio said there is no "single typical day" at the State Department, a remark that underscored the demanding schedule that makes hauling coolers of sauerkraut around the world impractical, at minimum.
The diet Rubio mocked is not some fringe internet fad. Kennedy adopted the regimen, sometimes called the "living carnivore diet", last year under the guidance of Dr. Sean O'Mara, a physician who advises high-profile patients to eat more kimchi and grass-fed steak while cutting out alcohol and sugar. Kennedy told The Wall Street Journal in June that the plan helped him lose 20 pounds in 30 days and eased his irregular heartbeat.
The diet does not come cheap. O'Mara's "optimization plans" start at $8,000, and direct consultations run $18,000, the Journal reported.
Kennedy is not the only administration official who signed up. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick both adopted O'Mara's program last year. Vice President JD Vance started the diet during Lent this year, a detail that adds an interesting wrinkle, given the evolving dynamic between Rubio and Vance inside the administration.
That so many senior officials have embraced the same expensive eating plan speaks to Kennedy's personal influence within the Cabinet. Rubio's willingness to poke fun at it, publicly, with his wife cheerfully undermining him, suggests he is comfortable enough in his own position to break from the trend without worrying about blowback.
The podcast was not all diet talk. Rubio also offered a rare glimpse into the personal dynamics of the Trump Cabinet, naming Kennedy, Vance, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent as the funniest people in the administration. He described Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as "a cat guy."
Rubio's rising profile, he has been surging in 2028 prediction markets, makes even lighthearted interviews politically relevant. Every public appearance shapes the way Republican voters see him, and the podcast painted a picture of a confident, self-deprecating official who can laugh at himself and at his colleagues without drawing real conflict.
President Trump himself has publicly floated a Vance-Rubio ticket for 2028, which gives Rubio's casual ribbing of Vance's diet choices a layer of friendly competition.
Whether Kennedy's sauerkraut regimen actually makes America healthier remains an open question. But Rubio made one thing clear on Tuesday: the Secretary of State is not giving up Pop-Tarts for anyone, not even the man running HHS.
In Washington, loyalty has its limits. Apparently, so does fermented cabbage.