Ted Walz is Kamala Harris’s vice presidential running mate and JD Vance is Donald Trump’s and never the twain shall meet. Right? Wrong. At least when it comes to their (and Lana Del Ray ’s?) reported soft drink of choice: Diet Mountain Dew.
Last month, Vance told a joke that fell flat about drinking the bubbly beverage (later ribbed over it by Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear), and toasted with it at a public appearance with Newsmax, reportedly declaring , “This is the good stuff here. High caffeine, low calorie.
” Walz, meanwhile, demonstrated years ago that “a seemingly bottomless can of” the fizzy stuff was his refreshment of choice, according to a local profile , as was pointed out by the New York Times on Tuesday in a short piece about this “bizarre twist of beverage fate.” He’s also offered recent evidence of his love for the stuff on X . News of the amusing common denominator comes about a year after the World Health Organization raised concerns about the health risks of aspartame, which is one of three artificial sweeteners—along with acesulfame potassium and sucralose—used in Diet Mountain Dew.
And it comes several months after the Federal Trade Commission issued a warning to the American Beverage Association and the Canadian Sugar Institute for allegedly compensating dietician influencers to endorse the safety of aspartame on TikTok and Instagram without disclosing their connection to the trade associations. Is aspartame safe? The FDA considers all .