The claim: Image shows social media post from RFK Jr. promising to bankrupt ‘packaged food companies’
A Nov. 10 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) includes a screenshot of a post on X, formerly Twitter, purportedly made by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Nov. 10.
“I’m going to make sure packaged food companies stop selling processed (food) to every American. I’m going to bankrupt you,” the supposed post from Kennedy reads.
The Instagram post’s caption reads in part, “@robertfkennedyjr out here sharpening his axe. I hope those words turn into action.”
It was liked more than 1,700 times in four days.
Our rating: Altered
The purported post from Kennedy is a fabrication. No such post appears on Kennedy’s X account, and there are no credible news reports about him making such a post-election statement.
Image of fabricated post spread by parody X account
Kennedy ran for president in the 2024 election but suspended his campaign in August and endorsed Republican nominee Donald Trump, who was elected to a second term Nov. 5. In his victory speech, Trump alluded to a possible role for Kennedy in his administration in the health space, saying, “He’s going to help make America healthy again … He wants to do some things, and we’re going to let him go to it.”
On Nov. 14, Trump nominated Kennedy for health and human services secretary.
Kennedy is a long-time critic of processed foods. He appeared on “Fox & Friends” in October and said he would “immediately” eliminate processed food from school lunches if given a position in a second Trump administration. In an Oct. 11 X post he said, “Ultra-processed food is driving the obesity epidemic,” and in a Sept. 4 post he blamed processed food for a “flood of chronic illnesses.”
But there’s no evidence Kennedy made the post shown on Instagram.
No such post appears on Kennedy’s X account. And there are no credible news reports about Kennedy making the purported Nov. 10 statement promising to “bankrupt” certain food companies.
The screenshot in the Instagram post contains other clues that the supposed X post from Kennedy isn’t real.
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The image shows an X post from a user who uses the name “Not Jerome Powell” and whose bio labels the account as a parody. The fabricated X post from Kennedy is embedded as an image in the parody account’s post, which itself is a reply to an X post from Trump and includes the caption, “You need to make RFK the Health Secretary.”
The parody account shared the fabricated post from Kennedy multiple times, racking up thousands of reposts.
The Instagram post is an example of what could be called “stolen satire,” in which content originally written and presented as parody is captured and reposted in a way that makes it appear authentic. As a result, readers of the second-generation post are misled, which is what happened here.
USA TODAY reached out to the Instagram user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
Check Your Fact also debunked the claim.
Our fact-check sources
- X, accessed Nov. 12, @RobertKennedyJr
- @alifarhat79, Nov. 10, X post
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