April 23, 2025

Red Dye Panic, Coffee Nightmares, and CBS Drama: Patrick Gutfield Takes on America's Latest Absurdities

Show Notes
Transcript

Join Patrick Gutfield on "Ballot" as he dives into Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s war against food coloring, revealing what "Make America Healthy Again" means for your favorite cereals. Patrick also unpacks the shocking "sixty Minutes" executive producer resignation amid a twenty-billion-dollar Trump lawsuit, and discovers why flight attendants are silently judging your decaf coffee order (hint: it involves airplane toilets). This episode serves up biting commentary on Washington's latest antics with the perfect blend of satire and uncomfortable truths that will have you reconsidering both government policies and in-flight beverage choices.

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Callaroga Shark Media from Washington, DC, where we'd like a DeCamp.

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This is ballot.

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That's right, that's one of those jokes that pays off

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five minutes from now. Just stick with it, Hi, I'm

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Patrick Guttfield with news about my diet.

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Health Secretary Robert F.

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Kennedy Junior just made a huge announcement that's got the

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food industry seeing red, or rather not seeing red anymore.

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He's phasing out all petroleum based artificial food dies from

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our nation's food supply as part of his Make America

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Healthy Again agenda. Back in January, before President Biden packed

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his bags, the FDA announced they were giving red dye

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number three the boot. You know that stuff that's in

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some foods and medications. Well now Kennedy wants companies to

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stop using it even sooner than the twenty twenty seven

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to twenty twenty eight deadline.

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But wait, there's more.

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He's also planning to kick citrus red number two and

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orange be to the curb in the coming months. Next

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he'll ban Mambo number five. And if you thought that

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was the end of it, hold onto your artificially colored hats.

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By the end of next year, they want to phase

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out the six remaining artificial food colorings, including Red number forty.

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That's right, the government is coming for your skittles. What

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is red number forty, you ask well. According to doctor

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Kelly Johnson Arber, a toxicologist at MedStar Health, it's one

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of the most commonly used innthetic food dies in America.

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The FDA approved it back in nineteen seventy one, and

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it's been making your sodas, cereals, and baked goods look

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prettier ever since. Now, both the FDA and European Food

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Safety Authority have said Red number forty is safe for

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consumption as long as you don't go overboard. Scott Keatley,

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a registered dietitian, says a person weighing one hundred and

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fifty four pounds could theoretically consume up to four hundred

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ninety milligrams daily without expected adverse effects. I don't know

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about you, but I've never measured my daily Red number

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forty intake. Is that something people do? Hold on, honey,

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I've already had four hundred and eighty nine milligrams of

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Red number forty today I can only have one more

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milligram of this cherry coke. So where does one find

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these soon to be banned dies in pretty much everything

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that makes life worth living, Skittles, Eminem's Tricks, Lucky charms,

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fruit loops, applejacks, basically ninety percent of my diet since college.

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I guess we'll all be eating gray cereal soon. Taste

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the rainbow will become taste the various shades of beige.

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But hey, at least we'll be healthier, right, or at

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least our food will look like it came from the

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nineteen fifties again. Make America gray scale again. Guys, I

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can't even make this next one up. I'm on white

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House dot gov. The headline says, again, I Am not

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making this up. On Earth Day, we finally have a

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present who follows science. For a second, I thought they

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were announcing a new president, but no, I kept reading

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it says Under President Donald J. Trump, America is back

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leveraging environmental policies rooted in reality to promote economic growth

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while maintaining the standards that have afforded Americans the cleanest

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air and water in the world for generations, Unlike the

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previous administration, which wasted billions of taxpayer dollars on virtue

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signaling and ineffective grifts. The Trump administration's policies are rooted

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in the belief that Americans are the best stewards of

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our vast natural resources.

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No green new scam required.

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All that to say, it's been a minute since I've

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read George Orwell. We've got some breaking news from the

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television world that's more dramatic than the season finale of

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any reality show. Bill Owens, the executive producer of Sixty Minutes,

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just resigned faster than a politician backpedaling on campaign promises.

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Now let me set the scene for you.

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Owens has been running this TikTok news institution since twoy nineteen,

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but apparently he couldn't.

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Take the heat in the kitchen anymore.

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In his goodbye note, he basically said, I can't run

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this show the way I want to anymore, so I'm

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out of here.

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Very subtle, Bill, very subtle.

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This whole mess started when President Trump sued sixty Minutes

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for twenty billion dollars that's billion with a B, claiming

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they edited an interview with Kamala Harris to make her

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look good. CBS was like, nuh huh, we didn't, and

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even release the full transcript, which is the journalistic equivalent

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of saying, check my phone, I dare you. Meanwhile, CBS's

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parent company, Paramount Global, run by Sherry Redstone, is trying

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to merge with Skydance Media, and rumor has it they're

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in mediation to settle with Trump, which the sixty Minutes

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team apparently hates more than DCAF coffee.

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Keep listening. In his memo, Owen.

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Said he was stepping aside so the show can move forward,

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which is kind of like how I did at a

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wedding after seven drinks. Apparently, flight attendants have been eye rolling,

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and not just because I hit on them. A flight

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attendant named Leanna has gone public with what might be

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the most devastating judgment you'll receive at thirty thousand feet

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ordering DCAF coffee.

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I mean, think about this for a second.

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You're trapped in a metal tube hurtling through the sky,

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and your beverage choices is yes, I'd like that brown

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water that tastes like it was filtered through an old shoe,

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But hold the one redeeming quality.

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It has been there, done that.

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This brave flight attendant went on TikTok and basically said

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what We've all suspected airplane coffee is sketchy at best.

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But DCAF, that's just madness. You're telling me you enjoy

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that flavor for the flavor. That's like going to prison

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voluntarily because you heard the food was amazing. But wait,

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the plot thickens Like day old airline coffee. A former

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flight attendant turned pilot named care Evans spilled the beans

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on how they clean those coffee pots. Apparently they dumped

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the old coffee into Are you ready for this the

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airplane toilet. The spout gets dangerously close to where, well,

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you know what happens in airplane bathrooms. Kevin, with all

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the dramatic flare of someone who's seen things he can't Unsea, said,

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I imagine there's some kind of backsplash of particles, bacteria, whatever,

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that goes directly back into the coffee pot. So that

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extra kick you taste not premium coffee beans. Portions of

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today's show were made with the help of bathroom coffee,

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Red forty and Ai