In New Washington Digs, MAHA Celebrates Its Wins and Vows to Keep Fighting

In new offices overlooking the Capitol, HHS Secretary Kennedy, his wife Cheryl Hines, Sen. Rand Paul, CMS's Mehmet Oz and others gathered to mark how far the movement has come - and intends to go.

There are few clearer statements of intent than a physical address. On July 20, MAHA Action, Inc., one of the movement’s cornerstone entities, gathered supporters on the rooftop of its new Washington office, the dome of the Capitol brightly lit against the evening sky.

The message the setting sent was unmistakable: MAHA has come to Washington and plans to stay there.

The event marked the opening of permanent offices in the city where Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lives, works, and is steadily reshaping the nation’s health for the better. But it was also something larger: a celebration of a movement that has turned conviction into results, and a declaration that its most consequential work lies ahead.

“I thank you for your organization and for your passion,” Cheryl Hines told a crowd of roughly 300. “We feel it in the room, but they feel it in the country . . . Don’t stop! Don’t slow down!”

Tony Lyons, MAHA Action president and host of the weekly MAHA Media Hub, opened the evening with a tribute to Kennedy that framed the stakes of the mission.

“Never in the history of the United States has there been a head of HHS who had the kind of vision that Bobby has,” he said.

“The kind of vision,” Lyons continued, “that pitted him against some of the most powerful companies on Earth …. We all know that Bobby Kennedy came to Washington not for fame, not for money, not for more power. But he came because he wanted to end the chronic disease epidemic in America.”

When Kennedy took the podium, his remarks carried the same humility Lyons had described. He turned the attention to the people working alongside him at HHS and its sister agencies.

Kennedy said, “These are people who care deeply about the American people, who care deeply about the most vulnerable people in our society, who are trying to make America live up to its promise, live up to its role as an exemplary nation, as an example to all other nations in the world about what happens when you build a system on idealism and fairness and common sense.”

Dr. Mehmet Oz, Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, spoke to the deeper purpose animating the movement — the conviction that its work reaches beyond policy and into the quality of American life.

“Because of us, and I believe I’m speaking for many of you, it’s not just about health. It’s about satisfaction and bliss. It’s a deeper joy that comes from enjoying the things in life that matter,” Oz said.

Other speakers included Senator Rand Paul; his wife and author, Kelley Paul; Stefanie Spear; Leigh Merinoff; Danielle Gansky; John Leake; and Dr. Daniel Pompa.

Lyons closed the celebration looking forward as much as back. “Let’s take this evening to really give thanks to the incredible, the unprecedented progress that is being made.”

The offices are new, the views are spectacular, and the movement, as everyone on that rooftop understood, is only just getting started.

[Below are videos of the four speakers quoted above, and a video of the entire event.]