What to Know
When talking about the Trump administration’s controversial food guidelines during a press conference, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s phone suddenly started ringing — or rather, quacking. Because yes, RFK Jr. really does have a duck ringtone and somehow forgot to silence his phone during a press conference he was speaking at. And while the sound was definitely disruptive, people were actually surprised by how well RFK Jr.’s ringtone seems to… suit him.
Reacting to a clip from the press conference online, a lot of people have said the same thing: “How appropriate.”
It almost doesn’t feel real to people.
The jokes are really writing themselves these days. “OMG! SNL couldn’t top this if they tried,” one person wrote in response to the clip. While it’s maybe not the most pleasant-sounding ringtone, people generally think it makes a lot of sense for RFK Jr. One critic questioned, “Is anyone at all surprised that RFK Jr.’s ringtone is literally a quack?” Another person wrote, “Who would have guessed a quack had a quack ringtone.” However, others argued that RFK Jr. might just have the duck ringtone (and not have his phone on silent or vibrate) because he’s a baby boomer. “I swear every [boomer] has the duck quack, the loud bells, or a train horn,” one critic on Reddit claimed.
People also started sharing their theories on who might’ve been calling the Health and Human Services Secretary. After all, maybe it’s not his general ringtone. It’s possible that he has contact-specific ringtones, and some people on social media theorized that the quack ringtone would make a lot of sense for President Donald Trump. Others speculated that it could have been RFK Jr.’s wife, Cheryl Hines, or the reporter he allegedly had an affair with, Olivia Nuzzi.
RFK JR's phone just went off in his press conference. His ring tone is a duck quack.
— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) January 7, 2026
(Not the only quack on that stage) pic.twitter.com/D8HAZMypVu
People laughed when it happened.
When RFK Jr.’s phone went off mid-press conference, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins tried to cover for him by relating the unexpected call to the topic they were talking about: nutrition. As RFK Jr. tried to quiet his quacking phone, Brooke chimed in with, “Duck is high in protein, that’s also interesting. Duck is a good thing to eat, everybody.” Dr. Oz eventually took the phone from RFK Jr. and told the person who called that they would call back later. This also led to a decent number of jokes on social media. For example, one Redditor wrote, “QUACK! QUACK! Dr.oz ‘I’ll take that.'”
Some people commented on how the unexpected ringtone might’ve been humorous or even relatable if it had happened during another administration. But because of how critics feel about the Trump administration, it did not land that way, and instead came off as another example of “incompetence.”
“The whole cabinet should be used as the dictionary example of anti-professionalism,” one critic wrote in response.
