MAHA Is Winning But Democratic Alligators Are Swarming

By The MAHA Report

On Sunday, February 15, CBS News’ 60 Minutes, one of most esteemed mainstream media news shows, did something few in the legacy media have done during the last two decades: Allowed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to speak plainly and uncensored, one of three interviewees during a nearly 14-minute segment about ultra-processed food.

Bill Whitaker, the news anchor, begins the segment, “Today, an increasing number of Americans across the political spectrum, from Make America Healthy Again activists to everyday shoppers, are voicing concern about the health impact of ultra-processed foods – those boxed and wrapped-in-plastic, ready-to-eat items lining grocery store shelves.”

After interviewing former FDA Commissioner, David Kessler, whose ideas on and passion for the dangers of ultra-processed food match Kennedy’s, Whitaker turns to the HHS Secretary. “Seventy-percent of Americans are either obese or overweight,” Kennedy tells him. “And it’s not because they got indolent or because we became lazy or because we suddenly developed giant appetites. It’s because we’re being given food that is low in nutrition and high in calories and it’s destroying our health. I see that when I go across the country.”

Food author Michael Pollan, the third interviewee, tells Whitaker that he agrees with Kennedy about the dangers of ultra-processed food.

Whitaker asks Kennedy the ‘obligatory’: “Are you concerned at all that your stance on vaccines might make people reluctant to support you on ultra-processed foods,” to which the Secretary responds, “My stance on vaccines is the same. People should have good science and they should have choice.”

The segment ends with agreement and hope that Secretary Kennedy can hold Big Food to account.

Allowing Secretary Kennedy to have his say – uninterrupted by anchor commentary spliced into the raw interview, as was the unsavory practice when Kennedy ran for president – shouldn’t be something we need to celebrate.

But this is where we are – and we’ll celebrate wins as they come, even as the Democratic alligators are swarming.

And swarm they did in the days immediately after Kennedy’s 60 Minutes interview.

What followed is no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention: the Democrats let loose their hacks, who took to The New York Times, Politico and CNN, for example, in what can only be viewed as a counter offensive – a well-coordinated media mini-blitz, with a Big Pharma ‘playbook’ hellbent on pushing Kennedy down. The overarching message: America should not normalize Kennedy; he’s a dangerous ‘nut job’ who wants to take away your kid’s vaccines!

In an article titled “The MAHA coalition is falling apart,” Times Opinion writer, David Wallace-Wells, sees fraying when in fact the MAHA movement is cohering and growing. “A year ago, food would have probably been a more popular initial crusade for Kennedy, given that many more Americans broadly share MAHA’s concerns about what we eat,” Wallace-Wells writes. “Coming a year in, though, the pivot to food looks more like a possible acknowledgement of political defeat.”

The Times has been actively promoting Kennedy’s demise for years. The paper has failed to cover his numerous ‘wins’ – instead falling back on dull, stale, tired tropes against the man selected to lead the HHS. Wallace-Wells is wrong. Kennedy and MAHA are winning.

Reforming Big Food has always been part of the MAHA agenda, but because that objective draws in more Americans from both sides of the aisle, it’s convenient for Wallace-Wells to see the movement’s success around food with the new Dietary Guidelines his ‘proof’ that it’s pivoting away from concerns over the safety of vaccines. The movement and Kennedy are doing no such thing.

Similarly, Politico goes with the sensational title, “RFK Jr.’s battle with the public health establishment has turned to trench warfare.” The resultant article wants Americans to see the secretary gutting departments, and public programs sinking in a quicksand from which they need rescuing. Actually, Kennedy and team are rescuing HHS and its sub-agencies from lazy science and backward thinking.

Over at CNN, host Abby Phillip, as reported in The Daily Beast, “calls out RFK Jr. for copying Michelle Obama.” The call for people to be active and eat real food “sounds familiar,” the paper writes. But no one has a monopoly on pushing against ultra processed food — or Big Pharma or Big Ag for that matter.

Such narratives are a prelude to what’s to come as we draw closer to the November midterms. Because the Democrats have unwisely dissociated themselves from Kennedy, they are sitting out a movement that comes with energy, stamina and issues every American should care about, especially Democrats. Food reform, as Michael Pollan recently pointed out, has always been an issue Democrats have championed.

True, but the party has abandoned it, and our children’s health, because of partisan politics. Think about that: Dems are willing to sacrifice their own children to support myopic and intransigent political dogma.

With compassion and gold standard science, MAHA is fighting for a new, healthier and happier America — one with today’s chronic disease epidemic in the rearview mirror.