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Millions Kicked Off Medicaid? 'Don't Eat Carrot Cake,' Says Administrator Oz
"Why don't you pry carrot cake out of my cold, dead hands and give us back Medicaid coverage for millions instead," replied Democratic Sen. Mark Warner.
Jul 14, 2025
U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz appeared on Fox Business on Monday, where he presented a carrot cake to celebrate Medicaid's 60th birthday and brushed aside concerns about the millions of Americans likely to lose their healthcare coverage under recently passed Republican legislation—by telling people to not eat carrot cake.
Oz—the multimillionaire erstwhile celebrity surgeon, purveyor of "miracle" cures, and failed U.S. Senate candidate—gave Fox Business host Stuart Varney what he called a "MAHA Medi-cake" before proceeding to extol the virtues of Medicaid, the program launched during then-President Lyndon B. Johnson's "Great Society" agenda that provides health insurance to more than 70 million lower-income Americans.
Medicaid "was a promise to the American people to take care of you if you are having problems financially or if you were having an issue because you're older and needed healthcare," Oz said. "And it changed the country in a good way for many reasons."
"But we're all in it together, Stuart," he added, "which means we'll be there for you, the American people, when you need help with Medicaid and Medicare, but you've got to stay healthy as well. Be healthy, do the most you can do to really live up to the potential, your God-given potential to live a full and healthy life, you know, don't eat carrot cake, eat real food."
17 million people are going to lose their health insurance because of the Trump administration.Dr. Oz's advice is “don’t eat carrot cake.”
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— Elizabeth Warren (@warren.senate.gov) July 14, 2025 at 10:17 AM
Social media users roundly ridiculed Oz's remarks, with criticism centered around the estimated 17 million people who will be left uninsured under the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed by President Donald Trump earlier this month. The legislation contains the largest Medicaid cuts in history.
"Why don't you pry carrot cake out of my cold, dead hands and give us back Medicaid coverage for millions instead," Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) wrote on Bluesky.
Another Bluesky user wrote, "Carrot cake didn't give me cancer, dumbass."
Yet another said, "Um... your boss eats McDonald's every chance he gets and you are judging people eating carrot cake," a reference to Trump's legendary fondness for Big Macs, Filet-O-Fish sandwiches, and vanilla shakes.
Still another quipped, "First he came for my crudites, now my carrot cake."
"Carrot cake didn't give me cancer, dumbass."
Over on X, one account with over 130,000 followers said: "What an insensitive prick as he brings a piece of carrot cake to Stu Varney during the interview. Republicans seem so gleeful to be hurting Americans. This is why millionaires and billionaires should never be in Congress or the [White House]."
The Occupy Democrats X account also weighed in, posting, "It's not enough for them to take away our healthcare, Republicans want to blame us for getting sick."
"The idea that avoiding carrot cake in favor of healthier foods will somehow render Americans immune to health problems is insulting in the extreme," Occupy Democrats continued. "Rather than 'let them eat cake,' he's telling us 'do not eat cake,' but the sentiment is every bit as out of touch as Marie Antoinette's apocryphal quote."
"MAHA stands for 'Make America Healthy Again,' an Orwellian phrase deployed by an administration that is actively making Americans sicker by stripping away their healthcare," the account added. "This is what Republicans really think of the American people. They ram through policies making our lives worse in countless ways, then they laugh at us and spit in our faces. There has never been a more gleefully spiteful political movement."
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Worker Group Rebukes Trump as 'Billionaire Sleazeball' Over Dump Truck Stunt
The Republican nominee "acting like he is a worker is beyond gross, and slap in the face to all working-class people," said the Durham Workers Assembly.
Oct 31, 2024
A worker group in North Carolina on Wednesday criticized former U.S. President Donald Trump and one of the Republican nominee's allies for campaign stunts involving garbage trucks.
After struggling to open the truck's door—which led to a viral video clip and concerns about Trump's physical condition—the ex-president climbed into the passenger seat of a white truck adorned with American flags and a banner that said, "Trump, Make America Great Again! 2024."
Wearing an orange high-visibility vest that he also wore during a later rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Trump took aim at President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, saying to reporters: "How do you like my garbage truck? This truck is in honor of Kamala and Joe Biden."
In a pair of social media posts, the Durham Workers Assembly highlighted that the dump truck gimmick followed Trump donning an apron last week at a McDonald's in another swing state—Pennsylvania—where he worked a french fry fryer and dodged questions about raising the minimum wage.
"First slinging fries at McD's now this!" said the Durham, North Carolina branch of the Southern Workers Assembly, which aims to organize the unorganized working class in the U.S. South and coordinate actions across the region.
"A billionaire sleazeball acting like he is a worker is beyond gross, and slap in the face to all working-class people," the group declared on social media. "Workers must organize and raise up to smash MAGA fascism!"
The Durham Workers Assembly noted that "pro-Trump fellow billionaire" Vivek Ramaswamy participated in a similar stunt, arriving at a Wednesday campaign event in Charlotte, North Carolina on the back of a sanitation truck.
The garbage truck events, as Politico explained, came in response to "Biden responding to a comedian at the former president's Sunday rally at Madison Square Garden calling Puerto Rico a 'floating island of garbage.' Biden, addressing the racist joke on Tuesday, appeared to call Trump's supporters 'garbage' in return, which Republicans seized on even as the White House said he was referring to Trump's 'supporter's'— note the apostrophe placement—'demonization of Latinos.'"
Winning over working-class voters has been a priority for both campaigns. Many national unions have endorsed Harris—though, notably, not the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, whose leader spoke at this year's Republican National Convention and faced criticism for not backing a presidential candidate for the first time in decades.
The United Auto Workers is among the unions that have endorsed Harris. In a Tuesday speech, UAW president Shawn Fain advocated for working-class unity against Trump, whom he's called a "scab," and emphasized that "we engage in politics as a union because it is core to our fight for economic and social justice."
Unions and worker advocates cheered Harris' selection of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate. A former public school teacher, Walz has slammed Trump and his vice presidential candidate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), as enemies of the working class, saying that "the only thing those two guys know about working people is how to work to take advantage of them."
Vance is a former venture capitalist known for his memoir Hillbilly Elegy, which was made into a movie. As Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson wrote in September: "In the pages of his book, Vance presents a dim view of the actual poor, whom he refers to as 'welfare queens' and accuses of 'gaming' America's too-generous social services. And as he campaigns in 2024, Vance is wielding his book as both a shield and a cudgel, using the tale of his hardscrabble youth to distract from the fact that he's now a multimillionaire member of the Senate, while simultaneously lashing out at the 'elites' for looking on his kind with contempt."
During a Thursday campaign event, Walz acknowledged the garbage truck stunt while lambasting Trump's tariff plans.
"This dude's nearly 80 years old. He damn near killed himself getting in a garbage truck. You would think over 80 years you would understand how a tariff works," Walz said. "Smarter people than Donald Trump—which is a good chunk of folks—CEOs of companies like Black & Decker, AutoZone, and Columbia, have gone on the record to say, if Donald Trump goes forward with this plan, they will simply have to raise prices and pass it on to you."
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During McDonald's Stunt, Trump Dodges Question on Raising the Minimum Wage
"McDonald's workers don't need photo-ops; they need living wages," said Nina Turner.
Oct 21, 2024
Standing in the drive-through window of a McDonald's in the battleground state of Pennsylvania on Sunday, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump dodged a direct question about whether he supports raising the nation's paltry minimum wage after employees at the low-paying restaurant briefly walked him through the process of making french fries.
"I think these people work hard, they're great," Trump said in response to the minimum wage question. "I just saw something, a process, that's beautiful. It's a beautiful thing to see, these are great franchises."
When reporters attempted for a second time to get an answer on the minimum wage, the former president moved on to a different question.
After working the fryer at McDonald’s, I asked Trump if he thinks the minimum wage should be raised: “Well I think this. These people work hard. They’re great. And I just saw something… a process that’s beautiful,” Trump said. pic.twitter.com/pg2synNA59
— Olivia Rinaldi (@olivialarinaldi) October 20, 2024
Trump's visit to the Pennsylvania McDonald's during the final stretch of the 2024 race was widely characterized as a political stunt aimed at bolstering the former president's claim to be a champion of the U.S. working class, despite his record of assailing labor protections and weakening an overtime pay rule put forth by his predecessor, leaving millions of workers behind.
After winning the 2016 election, Trump selected fast food executive Andrew Puzder—an opponent of raising the minimum wage and subminimum wage for tipped workers—as his pick to lead the U.S. Department of Labor. Puzder withdrew after it became clear he didn't have enough Senate support to be confirmed.
"Ending the subminimum wage and raising the minimum wage would be the real happy meal for American workers," Saru Jayaraman, the president of One Fair Wage, said Sunday. "While Trump panders to the wealthy, workers across Pennsylvania and the nation are still earning poverty wages."
The New York Times reported that the McDonald's was closed to the public during Trump's visit and that the GOP nominee "handed bags of food to preselected drive-through customers." McDonald's is viciously anti-union and, until 2019, lobbied against minimum wage increases.
Trump used the visit to attack his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, whose campaign said she worked at a California McDonald's in 1983 after her freshman year of college.
"McDonald’s representatives have ignored media requests for information," the Times reported. Trump claimed, without evidence, that Harris is lying about having worked at McDonald's.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris' running mate, hit back at Trump on social media, writing, "This guy spent decades stiffing workers pay, cut overtime benefits for millions of people, and opposed any effort to raise the minimum wage."
Nina Turner, founder of the advocacy organization We Are Somebody, said Sunday in response to Trump's stunt that "workers don't need gimmicks—they need the power to organize and demand the wages and dignity they deserve."
"McDonald's workers don't need photo-ops; they need living wages," said Turner. "We all need to come together and push back against a system that keeps them in poverty while corporate executives make billions. Real change is possible when workers unite and demand it."
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