According to RedState, Vance stepped behind the podium to fill in for outgoing Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, with the administration planning to rotate communicators until President Donald Trump selects a permanent replacement. The Vice President handled the usual barrage of policy questions, including concerns raised by the widow of a slain airman, but it was an exchange with Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy that stole the show and underscored the administration’s willingness to engage with the public in a more relaxed, human way.
Doocy, noting Vance’s visibly slimmer frame, cut straight to the point: "You've lost a ton of weight lately," he said, before jokingly asking, "How much sauerkraut do you eat every day?" The question drew laughter from Vance, who then launched into a story that blended Catholic tradition, personal discipline, and a bit of good-natured ribbing of a fellow Cabinet member.
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Vance recounted that he had planned to give up sugar and social media for Lent, a familiar act of self-denial for many Americans who still take religious observances seriously. Instead, he said he called Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., explaining that Kennedy told him he had something far better and "way more intense" than a simple Lenten fast.
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From there, Vance said, Kennedy put him on a strict regimen heavy on high-protein foods and, notably, sauerkraut. The Vice President quipped about the impact of the plan on his traditional pre-Lent indulgence, joking, "Let's just say if that was Fat Tuesday, Fat Wednesday never came."
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Vance then offered a tongue-in-cheek endorsement of Kennedy’s methods that still underscored a broader conservative emphasis on personal responsibility and health. "So my advice to you is, if you want to lose weight, call Bobby Kennedy. But if you want to enjoy what you eat, do not call Bobby Kennedy," he laughed, making clear that effective discipline often comes at the expense of immediate gratification.
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Kennedy, known for his MAHA — Make America Healthy Again — push, responded in kind, showing he can take a joke as well as he dishes out dietary rules. Not only did he answer Vance with an image of himself feeding the Vice President sauerkraut, but he also used the moment to playfully troll Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
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"Join the party," RFK said, sharing an AI-generated picture of himself offering Vance a forkful of sauerkraut while Rubio stands in the background, holding up a Pop-Tart. The image was a visual punchline to a running joke that began when Rubio, in an interview with Katie Miller last month, exposed Kennedy’s enthusiasm for sauerkraut and admitted he simply could not embrace that kind of regimen, calling it not "sustainable" for him.
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Rubio joked that he was not hauling coolers of sauerkraut around the country the way Kennedy does, dismissing that practice as "ridiculous." When Miller pressed him on whether he was fully on board with MAHA like Kennedy, Rubio said he supported the idea, only for his wife to jump in and flatly contradict him, saying he was nowhere near following healthy guidelines.
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She outed his snack of choice as Pop-Tarts, prompting Rubio to mount a spirited defense of American processed ingenuity, calling the toaster pastry one of man’s great "innovations in the history of the world and comes in a beautiful foil package." His wife, unimpressed, countered that he eats "all the things he should not be eating. Every single thing," a candid admission that, for many Americans, resisting temptation is far harder than nodding along with wellness slogans.
