Near the close of Brooke Baldwin's CNN program Monday afternoon, she invited on a board-certified gastroenterologist to assess the effect on President Donald Trump's health of his massive Diet Coke intake.
The discussion came with a visual aide of a dozen Diet Coke cans, representing the 12 Trump knocks back per day in the White House, according to a recent New York Times report.
Dr. Samantha Nazareth noted the diet soda had less calories than regular soda, but drinking 12 "essentially replaces what other liquids will provide to your body."
"You should be drinking water, not this," she said.
Baldwin wondered if drinking that many Diet Cokes could be "super crazy harmful" to the body, but Nazareth said not necessarily. Instead, it might encourage the drinker to engage in more sweets.
"You need to think of the body in its entirety. What are you drinking? What are you eating?" Nazareth asked. "How much are you sleeping? How much stress are you getting a day? This all affects the body. It's not just 12 cans."
Trump called the New York Times story an example of fake news because of its report on his reported TV-watching habits, but he didn't push back on the detail about the Diet Cokes.