DONALD TRUMP ISSUED an executive order last week to boost production of glyphosate, a widely used pesticide that’s long been the subject of lawsuits over possible effects on health. And the reaction on social media was exactly what you’d expect to hear from environmentalists on the left. “Absolutely disgusting and shameful” “Literally no justification for the way this was done” “A middle finger to public health” But these posts didn’t come from Trump’s progressive critics. They came from some of his most enthusiastic supporters: influencers who identify as part of the Make America Healthy Again movement. MAHA is the loose coalition of activists, social media figures, and like-minded voters who believe America is being slowly poisoned by the food and pharmaceutical industries. Their preoccupations include fighting environmental toxins and hawking wellness products, promoting natural diets, and challenging mainstream science on vaccines. In 2024, they threw their support behind the presidential campaign of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who had adopted the MAHA slogan as a twist on Trump’s MAGA branding. The informal coalition got behind Trump after Kennedy withdrew from the race and Trump embraced Kennedy and his agenda. Early on, they felt their faith was being rewarded. Trump tapped Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, with a mandate to “ensure that everybody will be protected from harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceutical products, and food additives.” But that was then. In the wake of Wednesday’s executive order and a series of episodes leading up to it, MAHA’s leaders say they feel like Trump has betrayed their trust and, in the process, alienated their followers. “Have we ever lost the midterms this early or is this a new record?,” the conservative, MAHA-adjacent podcaster Alex Clark tweeted. The question was rhetorical and, obviously, the fate of the GOP’s congressional majorities won’t depend on MAHA’s mood alone. But it’s not hard to see why Clark and her fellow MAHA faithful have so many doubts about Trump’s true priorities—and why those doubts are evidence of a significant fissure that’s developed within his coalition. “I READ AN ARTICLE TODAY,” Trump said during his January 2026 cabinet meeting, “where they think Bobby is going to be really great for the Republican party in the midterms.” The article he had in mind ran in Politico. It was one of several dispatches in the media citing GOP strategists who said Kennedy and his agenda could help Republicans hold on to—and even energize—swing voters who were becoming disenchanted with Trump over his handling of the economy, immigration, and other issues. The evidence for this included polling showing that broad, bipartisan majorities support Kennedy’s calls for healthier eating and more exercise. And there’s good reason to think Trump’s advisers believe it. In the last few weeks, Kennedy has been one of the administration’s most visible public emissaries, headlining a “Take Back Your Health” tour that is hitting politically important states and sitting for interviews with both 60 Minutes and Theo Von. That kind of publicity campaign doesn’t happen without the White House’s encouragement, although it’s an open question as to how much the tour is actually helping. The Theo Von podcast was where Kennedy talked about snorting cocaine from a toilet seat. And just a few days later the HHS social media team posted a video of Kennedy working out in jeans and chugging whole milk in a sauna with Kid Rock, the aging arena rocker turned MAGA provocateur. But a bigger political problem with making Kennedy the front man for the administration is not the occasional odd video. It’s that a big part of his agenda—and the one for which he is most beloved among some MAHA adherents—turns out to be highly unpopular. “The food and pesticide piece is the most compelling part of the MAHA narrative—that is what appeals to the vast majority of folks, even across some political lines,” Marissa Padilla, executive vice president at Global Strategies Group, a Democratic-aligned PR and polling firm, told me. “Where it gets more split and divided is on the vaccine front. . . . That’s where we’ve seen some of the MAHA movement lose credibility.” Padilla is a veteran of the Obama administration who advises Democrats and liberals. But some prominent GOP strategists have reached the same conclusion. Among them is Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio, whose firm released several surveys warning, as one December report put it, that “while the MAHA agenda is broadly popular in the area [of] food and agriculture, vaccine skepticism stands as an outlier, rejected by most voters even within the MAHA movement.” It’s not clear how much of this advice got to Trump. He has for years expressed his own skepticism of vaccines, including multiple instances in 2025 when he espoused wild, flagrantly untrue statements about the numbers of vaccines children receive and supposed links to autism. And as recently as this January, he was on social media spreading some of those same false claims while praising Kennedy’s decision to scale back official childhood vaccine recommendations from seventeen to twelve. But Trump has had less to say about vaccines recently. And this past week, the White House interceded with the Food and Drug Administration, which was refusing to review the application for a new seasonal flu shot by the vaccine maker Moderna. After a meeting in which Trump reportedly made clear he was unhappy with the FDA’s posture, the agency said it would review the vaccine after all. The reversal mollified some of the administration critics who were nervous that the FDA’s initial decision might spook investors and undermine the finances of vaccine development. But it infuriated some MAHA influencers, who saw it as a sop to the drug industry and a retreat on Kennedy’s broader agenda to scale back federal support for vaccines. A particularly blunt protest came from “medical freedom” advocate Toby Rogers, who addressed a tweet to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. “If the Moderna mRNA flu shot is approved, the medical freedom movement will abandon the Republican Party in the midterm elections,” wrote Rogers, a political economist at the MAHA-aligned Brownstone Institute. “That’s not a threat, that’s a promise.” Rogers posted that on Wednesday, at around two in the afternoon. Three hours later, the White House released Trump’s order on glyphosate. Careful reporting. GLYPHOSATE IS LITERALLY the most-used weed killer in history. In the United States, corporate and family farmers spray nearly 300 million pounds of it each year on corn, soybeans, and other crops. Glyphosate comes from a compound that scientists first synthesized in the 1950s, and that the company Monsanto introduced as a commercial product called Roundup in the 1970s. You might recognize the name because the consumer version is a popular home gardening spray, or perhaps because it has been the subject of well-publicized litigation over possible links to cancer.¹ The word “possible” is important because the actual connections remain in dispute, with a World Health Organization agency concluding the substance is “probably carcinogenic to humans” and the Environmental Protection Agency concluding it is “unlikely to be a human carcinogen.” Among those convinced of the dangers of glyphosate are MAHA’s leaders, and that very much includes Kennedy. In 2018, while still working as an environmental lawyer, he represented a groundskeeper with cancer who said he likely got the disease from Roundup. The jury hit Monsanto with a $289 million judgment for failing to warn consumers about its herbicide’s potential dangers. Kennedy has continued to warn about the threat of glyphosate—including in 2024, while he was still running for president. He even vowed during the campaign that he would ban the substance. And in just the last month, he reaffirmed his belief that glyphosate causes cancer while on Katie Miller’s podcast and then again during the appearance with Theo Von. But in that same interview, Kennedy said there would have to be some kind of “off-ramp” because the U.S. agriculture industry was so dependent on the herbicide to keep up its output. That dependence was what Trump cited in his Wednesday executive order, in which he invoked his authority under the Defense Production Act to make sure manufacturers prioritize glyphosate as needed to maintain supply. Shortly after the announcement, Kennedy put out a statement supporting the order on the same grounds. The order’s legal rationale seems shaky, given the general understanding of the Defense Production Act as a tool for addressing emergencies or meeting true national security needs. And exactly how the order will impact glyphosate production going forward is unclear. But the decision comes after a much-anticipated MAHA strategy plan from Kennedy conspicuously stopped short of calling for tougher pesticide regulation. And in December, the Trump administration backed an attempt by Bayer (which now owns Monsanto) to limit future liability for alleged harms from glyphosate through a case going before the Supreme Court. Those episodes were very much on the minds of high-profile MAHA influencers like Vani Hari, better known as the “Food Babe.” After Trump issued his executive order, Hari posted on X that Bayer “threw a grenade at MAHA & is loving this.” And in an interview with the New York Times, Hari made clear whom in the administration she holds responsible for aligning agriculture policy with Bayer’s interests. “Secretary Kennedy has done everything he said he’s going to do,” Hari said. “He has upheld his commitment to the American people. Now, whether his boss is doing that is another story.” THIS PAST WEEK’S ANGER could dissipate with time, especially if Trump and Kennedy pick new fights that win back support from the MAHA base. But to hold seats in November, Republicans need this swath of voters energized, not merely content. And that will be tough with so many disenchanted MAHA influencers, because of the unique role they play as storytellers and trusted guides for an audience primed not to trust experts, public officials, and mainstream media. “It’s a big shift in how this world has worked before,” said Padilla, who was coauthor of a detailed report on MAHA influencers that her firm published in December. “These influencers are really able to drive a narrative.” The influencers also serve a second, more subtle role in maintaining Trump’s governing coalition. Because they focus so much of their energy on attacking corporations—and because so many of them are “MAHA Moms” who talk about raising their children—their support reinforces Trump’s claims to be standing up for average Americans against an elite cabal that’s taking advantage of them and lining its own pockets. But Trump’s populist rhetoric belies his actual governing record, which includes dismantling agencies that protect consumers from financial fraud, cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans, and undermining health insurance programs on which millions of poor and working-class Americans rely. And that’s not to mention the big news from Friday, when the administration announced it was dialing back limits on power-plant emissions of mercury, which the Environmental Protection Agency classifies as a “potent neurotoxin” that can harm the developing brains of infants and children. In general these efforts have not rattled or provoked protest from Trump backers. And that very much includes Kennedy, whose silence on issues like mercury emissions—a hazard he spent much of his career fighting—has been conspicuous. But the pesticide announcement seems to have gotten the attention of his supporters, judging by last week’s reaction. If the anger lingers and MAHA influencers start protesting Trump policy changes that truly jeopardize public health, that could put political pressure on White House decision-makers—enough, maybe, to stop some of those changes from happening. That could make a real difference in the lives of Americans, regardless of what happens in November at the polls. 1 Monsanto has been phasing out use of glyphosate from its consumer Roundup products. But it still uses the substance in its industrial products. And several other companies have been producing their own versions ever since the product went off patent in 2000. You’re a free subscriber to The Bulwark—the largest pro-democracy news and analysis bundle on Substack. For unfettered access to all our newsletters and to access ad-free and member-only shows, become a paying subscriber.We’re going to send you a lot of content—newsletters and alerts for shows so you can read and watch on your schedule. Don’t care for so much email? You can update your personal email preferences as often as you like. To update the list of newsletters or alerts you received from The Bulwark, click here. Having trouble with something related to your account? Check out our constantly-updated FAQ, which likely has an answer for you.
|
