Bulwark Takes - So Much for Health! RFK's MAGA Steak ’n Shake Stunt

Episode Date: March 14, 2025

Sam Stein and Will Sommer discuss RFK and Sean Hannity's adventure to Steak 'n Shake to try "seed oil-free" fries that are now fried in beef tallow, but are still cooked in seed oil.

Hey guys, me Sam Stein, Managing Editor at The Bulwark. I'm joined by Will Sommer. What's up, Will? How you doing? Hey, happy to be here. First week at The Bulwark. Yeah, well, we'll get into how it's going a little bit. Will's here to talk about seed oils and steak and shake and how this whole thing that this burger company has done may just be, what are we calling it? Prop capitalism or something like that? Yeah, stunt capitalism. Stunt capitalism. Yeah, I think that's a good term for it.

First of all, folks, welcome to Will Sommer. New hire. He's going to be helming his own newsletter. But to get him warmed up, he did the edition of Morning Shots today. And Will, explain what you wrote about it. It's this thing that's in the zeitgeist. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared at this burger joint with Sean Hannity. Give us the backstory here.

Sure. So there's this chain called Steak and Shake. It's kind of in the name, what they make. I was not aware of it. I don't get it. What do they make? It's Midwestern. They have a bunch of locations. Have you been to one? I have not get it. What do they make? It's Midwestern. They have a bunch of locations.

Have you been to one? I have not. No. And and but, you know, maybe I will now that I know that they're cooking. And so they've kind of been up and down. I mean, they've had their business struggles, but they've done a new pivot and they're kind of going in a very MAGA direction. And part of that is they announced recently that they're going to stop a deep frying the French fries in seed oils. So soybean oil, canola oil, right. And instead in beef tallow or beef fat.

Right now, why? Yeah. So this is kind of a rabbit hole, but there's kind of this growing movement over the past few years among like online fitness types. And in particularly on the right to ditch seed oils, it whole but there's kind of this growing movement over the past few years um among like online fitness types and in particularly on the right uh to ditch seed oils in your diet and you know for the story i looked into what the scientific scientific evidence is against seed oils and

there's not a ton that they're bad for you i mean yes drinking oil of any kind is not good for you, but so is eating beef tallow. And so basically the truth is that it's often used in processed foods. And so it's like, yes, like many diets where you eliminate something, you know, these seed oils are creating this obesity epidemic, chronic diseases that we just didn't have when we were kids. Because back then, our French fries were made with cleaner oil. And now everyone who eats French fries is getting fat and obese. And they're having all these coronary diseases that we just didn't have back then. You're telling me that's not true? Yeah.

Well, they sort of treat French fries like in the past, you know, this was like eating kale chips or something. No one ever got that off of eating French fries. He did say that on Christianity. He was like, oh, you know, back then I ate as many fries as I possibly could. Well, yeah. I mean, like I ate a lot more fries back in my youth, too, and I didn't get fat. That's not revelatory. That really hits like the whole seed oil thing. A lot of it is really keyed in on the idea that McDonald's switched in the early 90s into seed oils from beef tallow.

And but, you know, imagine there's a lot of like. They did, right? They did. They did. They did. And I think there's a lot of nostalgia for America, diner, that kind of aesthetics. And frankly, being a kid, a lot of this plays. And that's why it's so focused on the French fries. Sweet Green's menu this month is also ditching seed oils. And you don't see RFK, as far as I know, showing up there.

Is Sweet Green doing that because they want to get in good with Trump? I don't know if it's Trump specifically, but I think it's clearly like a nod to seed oil phobia. Like I went there and they had the it was like, no seed oil. Don't worry about it. Sweet. You know, but there is a big reveal in your newsletter. Yes. Well, this is, you know, sorry, seed oil haters. So, so steak and shake made a

big deal about this. As you said, RFK went there with Sean Hannity and they said, wow, these are amazing. People are raving about these French fries. You taste them. Amazing. But a lot of make America healthy again, influencers who are very serious about their seed oils are saying that in fact, there are seed oils in the french fries um and that is because the evidence for this well so unfortunately steak and shake didn't get back to me on the deal with this okay um but the evidence appears to be that basically every fast food chain pre-orders with the exception of five guys and perhaps a few others you know if they're coated in any other oils or preservatives or is it just one ingredient frozen potatoes yeah it's got quite a bit it does is there an oil on the fries too vegetable soybean okay so that's coated but when you fry them they're

in beef tallow pre-orders pre-cut uh fries from like a cisco like a restaurant supplier right and in those cases they are um they are almost always cooked in soybean oil i talked to a guy who runs an app called seed oil scout so he takes this very seriously and he said it is basically impossible to buy restaurant wholesale fries in beef tallow it does not exist wait sorry they but they're buying pre-cooked fries they're not cooking them on site they they're pre-cooked and then frozen and then cooked again on site to be honest this story kind of turned me off of all french fries the getting deep into the supply chain and you know i didn't realize so we're getting double fried fries yes at least yes at least and and i mean so and and as part of this i mean people have been showing up at steak and shakes and saying you know let me back there let me see

how you're frying those or like you know show know, show me. Are there videos online of them trying to like budget? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, they're saying, you know, let me see the ingredient list. I was wondering if there was any way I could see the beef tallow that you guys cook it in. Just like a picture of it or something. Take a picture right now. Yeah.

Thank you so much. The picture of it. Yeah. If I could just. I can tell you what's in it, but I can't give you the picture. Oh, you can't give me the picture? No. You can tell me what's in it though?

Yeah. Okay. Awesome. Ingredients, beef tallow, natural, SCP, all fried. RFK, is he aware of this? Do we have any sense of whether the real Maha power brokers are a little bit upset that they're giving all this attention to Steak and Shake? I would be kind of surprised if he's not aware of it because a lot of the people who've been raising this are pretty big deals in Maha. This woman named Alex Clark,

who has like, I think, 500,000 YouTube subscribers, a huge amount. And she was kind of feuding with Steak and Shake, who said, she said, you know, this is not true. You haven't eliminated seed oils. And they sort of said, they didn't explicitly say that it has seed oils, but they said, well, look, supply chains are complicated.

You know, let's just leave it at that. I don't want it to get lost because there's the absurdity of are seed oils in here on the first fry or the second? And then there's the kind of larger context of RFK going to this

place, sitting down, eating a burger and fries. Hannity's ordering him a big soda. If you have that every day, it's not healthy. Let's just be clear. That's one. And then two is they're there to talk about ostensibly his stewardship of the Department of Health and Human Services. And while during the interview, they're talking about this measles outbreak that's happening in West Texas that's affecting, you know, predominantly, if not exclusively, the unvaccinated. And during this entire interview, he means like suggesting like cod liver oil and suggesting that the vaccines themselves actually may cause the measles.

And like if you're looking in the aggregate for, you know, whether the interview was moving in a healthy direction or not, I feel like it's fairly one sided, but maybe I'm not the right person to, to gauge that. Yeah. I mean, it's an interesting thing. I mean, I think a lot of the Maha stuff is very, I mean, in reality, like the way to lose weight is just eating less food. Right. And yet we're showing up at a fast food restaurant and the, I just don't understand like a fast food restaurant, no matter what. Even if you had beef towel fries and burgers every day, that would not be good for you. And you can see in the interview that

RFK is absolutely disgusted. Maybe he's cool with the french fries, but everything else there repulses him. And so Hannity says at one point, he said, this is my second hamburger because I ate one right before we started and RFK looks like Before you got here, I already had a burger. So I'm having enough.

I'm breaking my diet. And then they bring, the waiter brings like a milkshake over and RFK goes, I did not order that. That's not mine. They have pre-diabetes. I didn't order that. He did not order that. It looks great. But then again i and this is in your news there it's like there's something discordant about the health and human services secretary during a measles

outbreak like taking the time to like hang with handy at a burger joint and talk about fries well and he says you know you're thinking maybe maybe he'll say something and by the way get vaccinated or something and then he goes well as long as we're talking about measles, actually, that vaccine is pretty bad for you. And you go, oh, no. I just I I laugh because it's so crazy and absurd. But I mean, it is stunt. It's like you said, it's it's stunt capitalism. And in this case, it's not even just capitalism.

It's sort of stunt governance. Right. It's like taking these moments and trying to make some sort of larger picture message out of it. And it's like the same thing with the Tesla show on the White House South Lawn. It's just sort of like, all it is, is to sort of create memes and draw attention. I think that's right. I mean, the comparison here is, you know, you would think that if we're going to make America healthy again, are we going to vaccinate children? No. Right. Like a normal thing to do would go down to West Texas and get the vaccine. Right. Like that would you would or yeah, like, you know, or like be with someone who gets the vaccine to like use the cameras and the attention you can get for some larger public health good. Instead, you're eating fries. Yeah. And I mean, you know, I should also add that, you know, Steak and Shake is also kind of

maggot up already. I mean, they run right wing Maxim. So, you know, not the Maxim of your, of my youth. No, no, no, no. The different, but first of all, they don't run it. It's the company that owns Steak and Shake. Yes, it's the same owner.

I just want to be clear. The restaurant itself is not owning the magazine. Yeah, well, it's all very interesting. I just want to be clear. The restaurant itself is not owning the magazine. Yeah, well, it's all very interesting. And I guess Steak and Shake recognizes that the one way to relevance, or at least for economic stability, is to getting good with a political movement. They've been posting a lot of Bitcoin memes and Maha, you know, the whole thing. Buy your fries with the Trump meme coin, I guess. 10% off. All right all right well it's such a pleasure having you on here i knew when we brought you on we would talk about weird shit

i didn't realize how quickly we would talk about weird shit so thank you for doing this thank you for your service and thank you for watching us