Boston Is Ready to Fight RFK Jr. Over Dunkin’

So far in his battle to get Americans to “eat real food,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has flipped the food pyramid upside down and, for some reason, started posting AI images of himself with a tattoo like Mike Tyson’s. But things recently escalated after he took on Boston’s most beloved institution: Dunkin’ Donuts.

At a rally in Austin last week, Kennedy declared, “We’re going to ask Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks: ‘Show us the safety data that show that it’s okay for a teenage girl to drink an iced coffee with 115 grams of sugar in it.’ I don’t think they’re going to be able to do it.” Shockingly, this is one of his more reasonable takes — some Dunkin’ Donuts frozen-coffee drinks do contain more than 100 grams of sugar, which is more than twice as much as most experts would recommend consuming in a day. But try telling that to anyone who lives in Massachusetts.

Reposting Kennedy’s comments on Wednesday, Massachusetts governor Maura Healey wrote, “Come and take it” on X. Massachusetts representative Richard Neal also weighed in with his own local twist, calling Kennedy’s threat a “wicked bad idea.” While Dunkin’ Donuts has yet to respond to the attack, plenty of other New Englanders made it clear they’re ready to defend the chain’s honor.

Meanwhile, RFK Jr. appears to be taking the backlash in stride. In response to Healey’s tweet, he wrote: “No one is taking away your Dunkin’. But isn’t it reasonable to ask whether a drink loaded with 180 grams of sugar is safe?”

I look forward to hearing what Ben Affleck has to say about all this.