RFK Jr. Picks a Fight With Dunkin’—And New England Isn’t Having It

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Hey everybody, it's me, Sam Stein, managing editor at the bulwark.

And you're in for a treat, a glazed treat of a take.

We are gonna be talking about Dunkin' Donuts

because our Health and Human Service Secretary,

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has gone to war with New England.

This is remarkable to me.

A Kennedy going to war with New England.

He has said, according to reporting,

I guess it was at this event he was at at Austin

as part of his Mahan initiative

that he's going to be asking, the quote,

is we're going to be asking Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks.

Quote, 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 gonna be able to do it, end quote.

Remarkable stuff here.

This could tear apart the state of Massachusetts

if he's not careful.

So I'm with JVL, I'm with Katherine.

Two of us came with props.

I can't wait to tell you what's in this thing.

It is absolutely grotesque.

I will get to that as a teaser in a little bit.

But JVL, you were the most eager to shoot the shit

on this one.

Why?

What's bothering you here?

I just, you know, why does Robert Kennedy hate America?

Is there anything more American than Dunkin' Donuts coffee?

America runs on Dunkin'.

Some might say, Sam Stein.

Is there anything more New England really

than Dunkin' Donuts than Dunkin' Donuts?

I don't know about you guys.

Both of you sort of New Englanders-ish.

I'm from Connecticut.

I'm New England.

You know, the first time I was in Boston

and I was riding on the tea

and I learned that there were platforms

where you could hop off, get a Duncan, light and sweet.

You just say light and sweet.

They knew what you wanted.

And then hop right back on the tea.

I was like, this is Wicked Pissa.

I love this.

I love this for us.

And this is America.

And Robert F. Kennedy wants to destroy that

because is he a communist?

Is he from Russia?

Did we lose a war?

That there's gonna take Dunkin' Donuts away from us, Sam?

What is the acceptable, what is the acceptable sugar level

for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.?

Why does he get to decide how much junk I put in my body, right?

This would not have gone over well

with conservatives 10 years ago.

It seems to be fine now.

Katherine, what is your actual connection to Massachusetts?

You live there part time?

So I live part time in Western mass in the Berkshire,

so on the other side of the city.

All fancy, yeah.

I know.

And yes, we have plenty of donkeys per capita here too.

It is the lifeblood of New England of Massachusetts.

I think if there's one thing that I've learned

about Massachusetts, it's that the three most important things

to people here are Duncan, the Kennedys, and the Red Sox,

in that order.

Yeah.

And so I don't know what it means to have a Kennedy going

to war with the number two value, excuse me,

the number one value here, which is Duncan.

Like the Boston Tea Party started here,

or on the other side of the state anyway,

over another kind of beverage.

So I don't know how well the people of Massachusetts

are gonna take it.

It's like watching a giant eagle attack the statue of Liberty.

Yeah, more or less.

Let me, let me play some, let me read some stats

for you guys about it.

Just because people might be like,

oh, people who aren't from the area might be like,

what are you guys talking about?

All right, we can pull up the maps here too.

We can put them over here.

But how many Duncan's are there?

Question mark.

Well, it turns out there's a fair amount.

9,990 locations, this is in the country,

but 1,030, what of them are in Massachusetts?

One for every nine.

Okay, this is another stat.

According to mapitude, which I just discovered

is a thing today.

In Massachusetts, 5.6 million people

live less than two miles from a Duncan.

That's 80% of the population.

You don't have to go very far to get a Duncan Donut coffee.

Now, when I was growing up in J.V.L.,

you probably feel the same way.

It was a simpler time.

You could get your light and sweet obviously,

and you went to Duncan Donuts mostly for donuts.

But along the way, it became defined by its coffee.

And there's a real cultural divide between people

who like the Duncan and people who went to Starbucks,

I guess, would be the other alternative.

But the real people went to Duncan,

even though most people think it tastes like shit,

I think it tastes great.

I love a Dunkin Donuts.

A Dunkin Donuts coffee.

Not the Dunkin Donuts anymore.

I'll do the bunch kids.

I'll do the bunch kids.

They used to make the donuts on premises.

Yes.

They would find a time every Duncan you went to made the donuts.

This was the, they had the famous commercial

with the little guy with the Hitler mustache going,

time to make the donuts.

I could make the donuts.

I made the donuts.

Duncan Donut.

Right, and they made him fresh every morning.

They were amazing.

No longer, because we can't have nice things in America

and shittification is our national anthem.

But the coffee,

qua coffee is,

it's just better than Starbucks coffee.

Now, Starbucks does better espresso drinks, right?

I myself,

I'm an elvated gentleman who prefers espresso.

I have coffee intelligentsia beans from Chicago

delivered to my home every 10 days,

because that's just how I roll.

But if you want just a cup of Joe,

you can't do better than Duncan

in terms of mass market coffee.

Was that your attempt at a New England accent,

a Boston accent, JVL?

I mean, sure.

It's better than clean us.

Go back to the yard.

Go back to the yard, yeah.

What do we,

what do we make of the Duncan commercials?

Because they become a thing,

Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are constantly in them.

Hey!

I don't need her.

I said look at everything I need,

right here with Duncan.

Hey, kid.

If you're still single doing this Boston Stink

and working for Duncan when you're 50,

I'm gonna be very disciplined.

Is it that, your girlfriend?

You like donuts?

It's so bad.

It's so bad.

I'm so bad.

I'm sorry.

I love you.

What year is that?

What year is that?

Super Bowl this year.

This is the Super Bowl at the Super Bowl.

Oh, wow.

Not quite as good as the Tom Brady, Matt Damon,

and Ben Affleck commercial from,

I think, was two years ago,

which also had JLo in it.

That was, also fantastic.

Yeah, there's one with Al Pacino,

it was in a movie,

making fun of Duncan Donuts.

What's my name?

Duncan Gina.

It's a whole new game.

Duncan Gina.

Duncan does his interests a couple different,

and truly insane drinks.

And I know Catherine, you're on the lookout for one,

but can you talk a bit about this 48-ounce bucket,

and then the fragrance?

I was, I don't know what that is.

Oh my God, yes.

So Duncan Donuts has introduced a 48-ounce bucket.

I think that is what they refer to it as,

of coffee to be clear,

not super, something else that might make more sense

in a quantity of that size.

And they're rolling it out.

I think it only select locations in Massachusetts

and in New Hampshire right now.

So it's not available yet.

I checked.

I really wanted that as a prop today, instead of.

What the fuck would you do with 48 ounces of this?

I'm gonna go swimming in it.

I'm not really.

How the heart attack?

Did you ever see that episode of Parks and Rec

where they talked about the enormous sizes of beverages?

No.

There's what were they,

they refer to a very large size that's,

it's about that size.

As a child size,

because it is approximately the size of a two-year-old child.

Yeah, I don't know.

What about the fragrances though?

Can you talk about that?

Cause that kind of intrigues me.

Yeah, there was a partnership a couple of years ago

where they were selling Duncan-centred deodorant.

I think it was Duncan-centred deodorant.

And like maybe shaving cream and shampoo.

And it kind of brings to mind that scene from Jurassic Park,

where he says, you know, your scientists were so obsessed

with whether they could,

they never considered whether they should.

And I don't know,

I've never tried these Duncan-centred things.

I don't know if you smell like a donut or a coffee

or that weird smell of the inside of a Duncan-donuts.

This sounds like something from 30 Rock.

I'm actually wearing the Apple Fritter deodorant right now.

Yes.

It's the crossover nobody asked for.

So there really is a lot of sugar in this shit.

Like absurd amount of sugar.

Oh my God, you did it.

You said you didn't like the donuts

and here you are eating one.

I want to just go through,

I want to go through some of the nutritional data

that they themselves post on their site.

So a large strawberry kulata has 110 grams of sugar

disgusting, but that's on the left side actually.

Yes.

Vanilla bean kulata,

ranging from small to large is either 83 grams

to 167 grams of sugar.

All the frozen chocolate, frozen coffees

and frozen chai drinks are at least 50 grams of sugar.

They go up to 168.

A large berry blue lemonade refresher.

This is 74 grams, that's a real steel healthy.

And a large chocolate covered banana ice coffee

has 67 grams of sugar.

Folks, that's just a lot of sugar.

It's just a lot.

I just looked up in the daily dietary guidelines

are apparently 50 grams per day per day.

So that's not you, you've, you've, you've bloated

or I'm sorry Mrs. Kennedy, I'm sorry.

You don't want people to be able to have

whatever the hell they want.

This is America.

Exactly.

We drive big pickup trucks and we drink big sugary coffees.

Yeah, not the nanny state here.

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Yeah, and if you think this is absurd

and obviously people aren't ordering this shit, you're wrong.

I did a little bit of investigative journalism.

I won on a Facebook page where people were asked

to tell them their favorite dunk in order.

And I came away truly depressed about humanity.

I'm just going to read a couple of people's favorite orders.

These are just random people.

I'm not going to name who they are, but these are real.

One woman says that her favorite order

is large ice coffee with five creams,

five liquid sugars, five mocha shots,

or a medium ice coffee with two mocha shots,

two caramel shots, four creams, and three liquid sugars

with cold foam on top.

Yeah.

One woman says she likes the large ice coffee

with four caramel, eight liquid sugars, and six BB shots.

I realize that BB is actually blueberry.

It's just disgusting combinations of flavors

on top of absurd amounts of sugar.

And then this was more like why?

But this one person said he likes an extra large hot

original coffee fine with eight splendor.

Oh, I'm not going to be part of drink shaming.

Okay, fair enough.

You're not going to shame these people for their drinks.

I don't know how many splendor does it take

to give a rat cancer?

Like, and-

At that point, you're not drinking coffee, you know?

You're not drinking coffee.

So, I took it upon myself to say,

I'm not going to drink shaming either.

I'm with DJ Violet, and I'm not going to knock it

unless I try it.

So, we went out and we got this absurdly large tub of coffee.

This is what's in it.

I'm so journalism right here.

This is it.

Okay, five shots of caramel, two shots of blueberry,

two coconuts, three splendor and four cream.

Now, like dark myth, you've got to chug the whole thing.

Okay.

Right.

Okay, here we go.

Oh, God.

Frank, the tank.

Frank, the tank.

Yes.

It's pure, it's pure, that's awesome.

Oh, my God.

That's awesome.

How is this different from having a melted sundae?

Oh, it tastes like, it tastes like ice cream.

It just tastes like liquid melted ice cream.

Yeah.

Wow.

Oh, while you harden your arteries

for the entertainment of our audience, Sam,

I will just say there is something absurd

about having a roided out ketamine addict.

Yes.

Who looks like he injects HGH into his eyeballs every morning

and horse steroids into his ass every night,

running around telling people what they can

and can't put into their felt holes.

You know what, Sam really needs in his beverage?

What?

You know what he really needs?

Beef tallow.

Beef, right.

Yeah.

I think that our HHS secretary would begin to that.

This is the thing about the maha stuff.

It isn't the case that they want everybody to be healthy.

They just want everybody to use the weird shit they like.

They want you to take, they don't want you to get

the MMR vaccine, but if you've got a cough,

you should be starting to take some Ivermectin

that had that off, right?

You're going to get your Ivermectins

and they want the ketamine.

You should be microdosing ketamine

and everybody should be on HGH

and they have a million quack supplements.

And well, have you tried colloidal silver?

It isn't even about make America healthy.

It's this weird group of crazy people

who just want to force everybody else

to be as crazy as they are.

Well, and there may be some MLM side to all of this too, right?

Maybe not for the Ivermectin,

but for some of this other stuff, Chinese peptides

and whatever else.

He's been asked about this, right?

Like someone was like, you know,

you go tanning in like tanning slons

and you, you, you're zining all the time.

Like, who are you, right?

And I think he said, well, I never said be like me.

You know, it's like, don't do it, which is,

you can't dictate to everyone else what they can

and can't do if they can't be like you.

So I find it, I find it absurd.

And there's better ways to go about doing this

than shaming people.

You can like educate them and work with Duncan

rather than outlying.

No, no, see, because if you do that, like Michelle Obama,

you're a communist.

Yes, that's communist, right?

If you, if you simply do after school programs

or you tell kids to exercise

and you try to get vegetables into school lunches,

well, that's the mark of the beast

and we need to have an insurrection

and a tea party and all that stuff

because you're a communist.

When you do this, you're making America healthy again.

Well, I will say this, I think reaching,

going after Duncan is a step too far.

Already we have the governor, Massachusetts Maura.

He lay saying, come and take it with a ice coffee

and the logo, people will revolt legitimately

if he goes after Duncan.

That's just, you can't do that.

He's going to lose Massachusetts, you know,

when he runs for president for the fourth time.

Trump better be worried.

Let me ask you guys a question though.

Does this have, if you were Duncan,

would you be spooked at being turned into a blue brand

by accident?

So, I mean, if, if, right, if, maybe,

if the governor of Massachusetts is latching on

and saying, come and take it,

are you concerned that people in Texas

are going to decide, well, shit,

I can't be drinking no Duncan Donuts.

That's lib juice.

I got to go to Bucky's and get a Bucky's coffee

with 85 sugars in it.

Sure.

I mean, yes and no because I don't think

there's a market penetration of Duncan in Texas.

Yeah, although the map says they are

in some of the urban zones,

it's mostly, it's really mostly East Coast

with spots of California.

But two is like, I don't know,

maybe this is just my New England bias here,

but like Duncan is iconic.

Like no, I think people just don't associate

Duncan in politics period.

And I don't think RFK junior attorney

is focused on them.

Was going to make them into a blue brand.

Have you, have you memory hold what happened

with Budweiser?

Budweiser was also supposed to be.

This is sugar, not having trans, you know,

spokespeople is fundamentally different sugar.

Everyone loves sugar.

Come on.

But I think at the point that you enter the culture wars

for whatever reason you enter the culture wars.

They didn't enter the culture wars.

RFK brought the culture wars on them.

They're just doing sugar.

You may not be interested in the culture war,

but the culture war is interested in you, Sam.

Yeah.

Duncan is just an iconic.

And it's also sort of like,

that's a blue collar coffee.

Come on, that's not.

As opposed to Bud, Budweiser.

Budlight was trying, Budlight was moving away.

That was the whole problem with the Budlight thing.

They're moving away from the blue collar nature.

You're wrong on this one.

Way wrong.

How would you advise Duncan corporate to manage this?

Because on the one hand, you can't look like

you're capitulating to him

because then you'll anger your, your lib customers.

But you don't want to be turned into like democratic blue juice.

What do you do?

I think there's probably nothing you can say or do

that will not alienate somebody

because it's so much fun to talk about.

Duncan, as we are doing right now,

like there are going to be other politicians who seize on it

and you're going to be drafted into one side

or another, whether you want to be drafted

in the culture wars.

So I think if I were them, I would just shut up.

Well, this raises a great question.

This raises a great question.

Are there brands iconic enough

that they could live above the culture wars

and not get dragged into them?

Is there like something so Americana

that you're just like, huh?

I mean, not the NFL.

And you would think the NFL would be.

Not the NFL.

I mean, didn't McDonald's try to signal like,

hey, yeah, we're going to test pilot beef tallow

or something, right?

To get right off their back.

And so they did like, whatever,

like what Foxconn Apple do with Trump.

Yeah, we're going to spend $1,000,000

on American manufacturing someday

and then Trump declares victory

and they keep doing what they're doing.

McDonald's did that, right?

They pretended to capitulate for a half hour

until the circus moved on.

I guess Duncan could do that, but I don't know, man.

Yeah, we'll look into it.

We'll look into like less sugar.

We'll cut it down a few grams from 115 to 100

and 12.

On the app, we won't let people select

more than 15 additional sugars.

You could talk out of five flavors, not a, you know.

I mean, they can say we're not forcing anyone

to watch the disgusting stuff that's in Sam's drink.

Yeah, it's freedom.

Well, we'll see.

Guys, this has been real pleasure.

I do need to wash out my mouth.

It's, yeah, enjoy your freedom, guys.

I love you, Sam.

It's turning really dry in the coconut flavors.

Awful.

Don't combine it.

I think that's, that's the diabetes

that you just induced in yourself.

Diabetes?

Yes.

Well, for Brimley, it's the diabetes Sam got.

Gotta go walk down to GW Hospital.

Get my cholesterol, track that after this.

All right, JVL, Katherine, thanks so much.

The good folks at Duncan.

Look, we love you.

If you want to come sponsor the bulwark happily

would take your ad dollars.

We support Duncan and one more

for good measure.

So good.

Thank you for subscribing to the bulwark

where you support good stuff like this.

Talk to you soon.

Goodbye.

All right, spill the little on my mic.

Tyler Reddick here from 2311 Racing.

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