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JVL
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Sam Stein
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 going to 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 MAHA 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 going to 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, I'm with Catherine. 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 jbl, you were the most eager to, you know, shoot the shit on this one. Why? What, what has. What, what, what's bothering you here?
JVL
I just, you know, why, why does Robert Kennedy hate America? Is there anything more American than Dunkin Donuts coffee? America runs on Dunkin, some might say. Sam Stein.
Sam Stein
Yeah.
Catherine
Is there anything more New England, really, than Dunkin Donuts? Than Dunkin Donuts?
JVL
I don't know about you guys. Both of you sort of New Englanders
Sam Stein
ish I'm from Connecticut. I'm New England.
JVL
You know, the first time I was in Boston and I was riding on the T and I learned that there were platforms where you could hop off, get a Dunkin light and sweet. You just say light and sweet. They knew what you wanted. And then hop right back on the tee. I was like, this is wicked pisser.
Sam Stein
I love this.
JVL
I love this for us. And. 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 going to take Dunkin Donuts away from us?
Sam Stein
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, but seems to be fine now. Catherine, what is your actual connection to Massachusetts?
Catherine
You live there, so I live part time in Western Mass. In the Berkshire. So on the other side.
Sam Stein
Oh, fancy.
Catherine
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, are Duncan, the Kennedys, and the Red Sox, in that order.
Sam Stein
Yeah.
Catherine
And so, like, I don't know what it means to have a Kennedy going to war with the number two value or, 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 going to take it.
JVL
It's like watching a giant eagle attack the Statue of Liberty.
Sam Stein
Yeah, more or less. Let me, Let me play some. Let me read some stats for you guys about how 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 Duncans are there, question mark? Well, it turns out there's a fair amount 9,990 locations. This is in the country, but 1,031 of them are in Massachusetts. One for every nine. Okay, this is another stat. According to Maptitude, 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 Dunkin Donut coffee. Now, when I was growing up, Jville, you probably feel the same way. It was a simpler time. You could get your light and sweet, obviously, and you went to Dunkin 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, like, I don't know, Starbucks, I guess would be the other alternative. But the real people went to Duncan. Even though, you know, most people think it tastes like. I think it tastes great. I love. I love a Dunkin Donuts.
JVL
A Dunkin Donuts coffee. Not the donuts anymore. The donuts.
Sam Stein
I'll do the munchkins.
JVL
They used to make the donuts on premises. Yes. So once upon a time, every Dunkin 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.
Sam Stein
Time to make the donuts. I made the donuts.
JVL
Dunkin Donut. Right? And they made them fresh every morning. They were amazing. No longer because we can't have nice things in America and shitification 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 am an elevated 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 Dunkin in terms of mass market coffee.
Catherine
Was that your attempt at a New England accent? A Boston accent? Jvl.
JVL
I mean, sure, it's better than Cletus,
Sam Stein
go back to the yard.
JVL
Go back to the yard. Yeah, yeah.
Sam Stein
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. I don't need her.
JVL
I still get everything I need right here at Duncan. Hey, kid, if you're still single, doing this Boston shtick and working for Duncan when you're 50, I'm gonna be very disappointed.
Sam Stein
Isn't that your girlfriend?
Catherine
You like donuts?
Sam Stein
It's so bad. It's so bad. I'm sorry.
JVL
I love it.
Catherine
What year is that? What year is that?
JVL
Is it the super bowl this year?
Sam Stein
This is the Super Bowl.
JVL
Last at the Super Bowl.
Catherine
Oh, wow.
JVL
Not quite as good as the Tom Brady, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck commercial from, I think it was two years ago, which also had JLo in it. That was also fantastic.
Sam Stein
Yeah, there was one with Al Pacino. It was in a movie. Making fun of Dunkin Donuts. What's my name? Duncano. It's a whole new game.
JVL
Dunkachino.
Sam Stein
Dunkin Donuts has introduced a couple different truly insane drinks. And I know, Kathryn, you're on the lookout for one, but can you talk a bit about this 48 ounce bucket and then the fragrance? I was unaware.
Catherine
Oh my God. Yes. So Dunkin Donuts has introduced a 48 ounce bucket. I think that is what they refer to it as of coffee, to be clear. Not soup or something else that might make more sense in a quantity of that size. And they're rolling it out, I think in only select locations in Massachusetts and in New Hampshire right now. Uh, so it's not available yet. I checked. I, I really wanted that as a prop today instead of what the fuck
Sam Stein
would you do with 48 ounces of this?
Catherine
I'd go swimming in it. I'm not really had a heart attack. Did you ever see that episode of Parks and Rec where they talked about the enormous sizes of beverages? No.
Sam Stein
No.
Catherine
There, there's one where they, they refer to a very large size that's. It's about that size as a child size because. Because it is approximately the size of a two year old child. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know.
Sam Stein
What about the fragrances though? Can you talk about that? Because that kind of intrigues me.
Catherine
Yeah. There was a partnership a couple of years ago where they were selling Duncan scented deodorant. I think it was Duncan scented 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 consum considered whether they should. And I don't know, I've never tried these Duncan scented things. I don't know if you smell like a donut or a coffee or that weird smell of the inside of a Dunkin Donuts.
JVL
This sounds like something from 30 Rock.
Sam Stein
I'm actually wearing the apple fritter deodorant right now.
Catherine
Yes. It's the crossover nobody asked for.
Sam Stein
So there really is a lot of sugar in this shit. Like absurd amount of sugar. Oh my God, she 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, their site. So a large strawberry culata has 110 grams of sugar. Disgusting. But that's on the low side. Actually.
Commercial Announcer 1
Yes.
Sam Stein
A vanilla bean culata 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 set 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 iced coffee has 67 grams of sugar. Folks. That's just a lot of sugar.
Catherine
It's just a lot.
Sam Stein
Yeah.
Catherine
I just looked up and the daily dietary guidelines are apparently 50 grams per day. Per day.
JVL
You've blown away Mrs. Kennedy. I'm sorry. You don't want people to be able to have whatever the hell they want. This is America.
Catherine
Exactly.
JVL
We drive big pickup trucks and we drink big sugary coffees. Yeah.
Catherine
Not the nanny state here.
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Sam Stein
Because a great trip starts with the right support. 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 went on a Facebook page where people were asked to tell the their favorite Duncan 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 iced 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 of.
Catherine
No.
Sam Stein
1 woman says she likes the large iced coffee with four caramel, eight liquid sugars and six BB shots. I realize that BB is actually blueberry. This is 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, extra large hot, original coffee. Fine. With eight Splenda. Oh. Oh.
JVL
I'm not going to be part of drink shaming.
Sam Stein
Okay, fair enough.
JVL
You. You. You're not gonna shame these people for their drinks.
Catherine
I don't know. How many splendid does it take to give a rat cancer?
Sam Stein
Like, at that point, you're not drinking coffee. You know you're not drinking coffee. So I. I took it upon myself to say I'm not going to drink shame either. I'm with you, jvl. 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.
Catherine
Gonzo journalism right here.
Sam Stein
This is it. Okay. Five shots of caramel, two shots of blueberry, two coconuts, three Splenda, and four cream.
JVL
Now, like dark myth.
Sam Stein
Yeah.
JVL
You've got to chug the whole thing.
Sam Stein
Okay. Oh. It's all. Okay. Here we go. Oh, God.
JVL
Frank the Tank. Frank the tank. Yes.
Sam Stein
It's.
Catherine
That's awesome.
Sam Stein
Oh, my God, that's awesome.
Catherine
How is this different from having a melted sundae?
Sam Stein
Oh, it tastes like. It tastes like ice cream. It just tastes like liquid melted ice cream.
Catherine
Yeah.
JVL
Wow.
Sam Stein
Oh.
JVL
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 addiction.
Sam Stein
Yes.
JVL
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.
Catherine
You know what Sam really needs in his beverage? You know what he really needs? Beef tallow.
JVL
Beef. Right.
Catherine
Yeah. I think that our HHS secretary would be into that.
JVL
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. They like, they want you to take ivory. 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 to head that off. Right. You gotta get your ivermectins and they want ketamine. You should be microdosing ketamine. And everybody shouldn't be on hgh. And they have a million quack supplements and. Well, have you tried colloidal silver? It is. It isn't even about make America healthy. It's. It's this weird group of crazy people who just want to force everybody else to be as crazy as they are.
Catherine
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.
Sam Stein
He's been asked about this, right? Like someone was like, you know, you go tanning in like tanning salons and you, you, you're zinning all the time. Like, who are you? Right? And I think he said, well, I never said be like me. It's like don't. 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 know, you can like educate them and work with Duncan rather than outlawing.
JVL
No, no. See, because if you do that, like Michelle Obama, you're a communist.
Sam Stein
Yes, that's communism, right?
JVL
If you, if you simply do after school programs where you tell, keep, 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.
Sam Stein
Well, I will say this. I think reaching going after Duncan is a step too far. Already we have the governor of Massachusetts, more Ahili, saying come and take it with us with an iced coffee and the logo. People will revolt legitimately if he goes after Duncan. That's just, you can't do that.
Catherine
He's going to lose Massachusetts, you know, when he runs for president for the fourth time, Trump better be worried.
JVL
Let me ask you guys a question though. Does this have the, 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 Dunkin Donuts. That's lib juice. I gotta go to Buc ee's and get Bucky's coffee with 85 sugars in it?
Sam Stein
Sure. I mean, yes and no, because I don't think there's market penetration of Duncan and Texas yet. 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, I, I don't know, maybe this is just my New England bias here, but like, Duncan is iconic. Like no one. I, I think People just don't associate Duncan politics, period. And I don't think RFK Jr turning his focus on them was going to make them into a blue brand.
Catherine
Have you, have you memory hold what happened with, with Budweiser? But that Budweiser was different.
Sam Stein
This is sugar. Not, not having trans, you know, spokespeople is fundamentally different. Sugar. Everyone loves sugar. Come on.
Catherine
But I think at the point that you enter the culture wars, for whatever reason you enter the culture wars, they
Sam Stein
didn't enter the culture wars. RFK brought the culture wars on them. They're just doing sugar.
JVL
You may not be interested in the culture war, but the culture war is interested in you. Sam.
Sam Stein
Yeah, Duncan is just an icon, iconic. And it's also sort of like, that's a blue collar coffee. Come on. That's not.
Catherine
As opposed to Bud Bud Light.
Sam Stein
Well, that's Bud Light was trying. Bud Light was moving away. That was the whole problem with the Bud Light thing. They're moving away from the blue collar nature. You're wrong on this one. Way wrong.
JVL
Catherine, 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?
Catherine
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.
Sam Stein
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
JVL
be not the NFL. I mean, didn't McDonald's try to signal like, hey, yeah, we're gonna test pilot beef tallow or something, right? To get K off their, their back. And so they did like, whatever, but like what Foxconn Apple do with Trump. Yeah, we're going to spend a bajillion dollars on American manufacturing someday. And then Trump declares victory. And they, they keep doing what they're doing. McDonald's did that, right? They, 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.
Sam Stein
Yeah, we'll look into. We'll look into, like, less sugar. We'll cut it down a few grams from 115 to 112.
JVL
On the app. We won't let people select more than 15 additional sugars.
Sam Stein
You can top out of five flavors, not eight.
Catherine
I mean, they can say we're not forcing anyone to order all the disgusting stuff that's in Sam's drink.
Sam Stein
Yeah.
Catherine
Freedom.
Sam Stein
Well, we'll see. Guys, this has been a real pleasure. I do need to wash out my mouth. It's. Yeah.
JVL
Enjoy your freedom Coffee, Sam.
Sam Stein
It's turning really dry, and the coconut flavor is awful. Don't combine it.
Catherine
I think that's. That's the diabetes that you just induced in yourself.
JVL
Diabetes. Wilford Brimley. It's the diabetes Sam got.
Sam Stein
Got to go walk down to GW Hospital, get my cholesterol checked out after this. All right, jbl. Catherine, thanks so much to 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. Oh, so good. Thank you for subscribing to the Bulwark where you support good stuff like this. Talk to you soon. Goodbye. I spilled a little on my mic.
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Podcast: Bulwark Takes
Date: March 5, 2026
Hosts: Sam Stein, JVL, Catherine
This lively episode of Bulwark Takes explores the recent controversy sparked by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s public questioning of the safety of sugary iced coffees at Dunkin’ and Starbucks. The Bulwark team—Sam Stein, JVL, and Catherine—delve into the clash between Kennedy and New England’s most cherished institution: Dunkin’ Donuts. The conversation blends cultural analysis, sharp humor, nostalgia, and critiques of public health grandstanding, examining the deep-rooted significance of Dunkin’ in regional and American identity.
The episode wraps with the hosts reinforcing Dunkin’ as a non-partisan, deeply American staple and playfully siding with consumer freedom over sugar shaming. They lampoon RFK Jr.’s approach and urge Dunkin’ to avoid getting sucked into the culture wars. Sam recovers from his “diabetes bucket” beverage, and the crew signs off with a salute to Dunkin’s iconic place in American life.
Final Sam Stein quote: “Thank you for subscribing to the Bulwark where you support good stuff like this. Talk to you soon. Goodbye. I spilled a little on my mic.” (20:48)