RFK Jr. rips CNN host claiming his $20 meal actually costs $70: ‘Abandoned both common sense and basic arithmetic’
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Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. blasted CNN host Erin Burnett, saying she has “abandoned both common sense and basic arithmetic” after a reporter on her show claimed the pol’s budget-friendly $20 meal actually costs $70.
Kennedy, 72 – who has flipped the food pyramid on its head to prioritize protein, dairy and “healthy fats” – recently launched a YouTube cooking show, “The Real Food,” with the goal of sharing affordable, healthy recipes that Americans can try at home.
During CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront,” journalist Tom Foreman did a deep-dive into Kennedy’s recent wild Alaskan salmon cakes and side salad recipe, which the health secretary says costs $19.64 to feed a family of four – or less than five bucks a head.
But Foreman said when he bought the cheapest versions of the ingredients needed for the recipe at a major grocery chain, the total came to more than $70.
RFK Jr. blasted the report in a post on X on Thursday night, arguing his show uses “standard recipe costing,” meaning it doesn’t add the total costs of each ingredient but rather how much it costs for the portion of the ingredients used. A dollop of mayonnaise, for example, would cost much less than the entire bottle.
“Trump Derangement Syndrome has so debilitated @ErinBurnett that she has abandoned both common sense and basic arithmetic,” the “Make America Healthy Again” official wrote.
“CNN wants us to incorporate the full package price of every ingredient, regardless of what is used in the recipe. If you put a squirt of ketchup on your burger, would you be surprised if the restaurant charged you for the whole bottle?”
He argued that the goal of the show is to help Americans “cook healthy food without breaking the bank” and “stock their pantries with high-quality ingredients they can use again and again.”
In the CNN segment, Foreman compared the prices that “The Real Food” advertised for certain ingredients to the costs that CNN forked over at the grocery store.
Kennedy’s show said 1.5 pounds of wild-caught Alaskan salmon should cost $8.99, but Foreman claimed the cheapest, most similar salmon he could find cost more than $24.
A red onion was priced at 8 cents on “The Real Food,” since the recipe doesn’t require the whole onion, but a shopper would need to pay at least a dollar for the vegetable, Foreman added.
It was the same for the avocado mayonnaise used in the recipe, which Kennedy’s show priced at 40 cents for a few tablespoons – while the whole bottle costs $11.19, according to CNN.
“They’re only pricing parts of it and grocery stores don’t sell things that way,” Foreman said, as he recreated the crispy salmon cakes at home.
“Yes, it certainly is tasty and appears healthy, but the problem remains: I do not see, having made this, how you could walk into a grocery store with $20 and come out with everything you need for this, making that part of the claim for many consumers, I think, very hard to swallow,” he added.