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President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are facing criticism from Make America Healthy Again movement supporters who say their policies have favored chemical, food and tobacco industries instead of improving public health. A Protect Our Care report cites low approval of Kennedy and widespread concern over administration policies, including support for glyphosate-based herbicides.
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President Donald Trump has repeatedly angered members of the “Make America Healthy Again” movement who helped elect him, according to a new report that accuses Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of failing to deliver on promises to clean up the U.S. food and pharmaceutical industries.by the left-leaning nonprofit Protect Our Care shared exclusively with HuffPost, Trump and Kennedy have “delivered a steady diet of broken promises, corporate quid pro quos and foodborne illnesses” over the last two years instead of fulfilling promises to take on the industry giants Kennedy has long claimed poisoned Americans’ food supply. The report also points out that many Trump administration policies have infuriated and alienated those in the MAHA movement.
“Donald Trump and RFK Jr. keep treating MAHA activists like disposable political pawns, and now wonder why many resent it,” Protect Our Care President Brad Woodhouse told HuffPost in a statement. “There’s not one MAHA promise Trump hasn’t been willing to break once the checks clear from his big chemical, food and tobacco donors. ” According to recent polling data, just 37% of Americans approve of Kennedy’s record as HHS secretary.
An Associated Press/KFF poll conducted last monththat while half of voters in rural areas identified with the MAHA movement, nearly 80% said the Trump administration’s policies had had either no effect or a negative effect on Americans’ health. Among other things, the HHS secretary defended a White House executive order in February restoring domestic production of glyphosate-based plant killers.
Glyphosate is the key ingredient in Roundup, the weed killer that’s been tied to cancer and whose manufacturer Monsanto was protected from liability in a Supreme Court ruling in June.following Trump’s glyphosate order that the move was “a betrayal” and an “egregious offense to what he promised” on the campaign trail, though she stopped short of blaming Kennedy.
“There’s not one MAHA promise Trump hasn’t been willing to break once the checks clear from his big chemical, food and tobacco donors. ”Kennedy, meanwhile, said the executive order on glyphosate was a national security imperative. And, over the summer, the Justice Department filed an amicus brief at the Supreme Court backing Monsanto, another move that riled MAHA activists.
The HHS secretary was also silent as the Trump administration approved the continued use of atrazine, a pesticide that’s been linked to cancer and birth defects — and he was present in May as the White House rolled backon X. “It is not MAHA to rescind limits on harmful forever chemicals in tap water, no matter how the EPA twists the legal logic to the benefit of chemical corp interests,” she said.
“Not buying it. ”The Trump administration has also introduced novel uncertainty into U.S. food safety standards, Protect Our Care pointed out, arguing that industry donations to the president bought a “friendlier” Food and Drug Administration and led to a spate of major foodborne illness incidents this year. The report ties food giant Taylor Farms’ $1 million donation to a Trump-aligned super PAC to the administration’s move last year to delay the enforcement of a food contamination tracing rule.
Taylor Farms was later the center of a massive outbreak of cyclosporiasis, which sickened more than 11,000 Americans and sent hundreds to the hospital. Protect Our Care also said Kennedy was “all talk” on claims he’d crack down on food dyes and ultra-processed food items, arguing the HHS secretary has failed to make concrete progress on either promise.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. listens as U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media in the Oval Office on Sept.18, 2026.of MAHA. Protect Our Care argued that the Trump administration has publicly oriented itself toward men and “testosterone culture,” citing“RFK Jr. can keep promising MAHA the moon at every podium and convention speech,” the report read.
“But a year into his tenure, the receipts tell a different story: cancer-linked chemicals back on the market, food safety agencies gutted, families paying more for groceries, and even the movement’s founders wondering whether they’ve been put out to political pasture. ”White House spokesperson Allison Schuster told HuffPost in a statement that “When President Trump pledged to Make America Healthy Again, he launched a grassroots movement of concerned parents, physicians, researchers, and educators across our country.
The Trump administration’s commitment to working closely with the MAHA movement to deliver on the MAHA agenda isn’t about political gain, but ensuring a better future for the next generation of Americans. ”Protect Our Care’s scathing indictment of Kennedy’s tenure at the head of the Department of Health and Human Services comes just a month before midterm elections that will serve as a referendum on the second Trump administration — and as Democrats increasingly look to woo the MAHA vote.accusing Kennedy and the Trump administration of failing to deliver on their promises to make Americans healthier.
And Democratic members of CongressSpeaking during a House hearing in March, Rep. Jim McGovern directly addressed the MAHA movement, telling them: “I share your outrage. ” McGovern added he was “disgusted” by “skyrocketing” rates of chronic disease and cancer he said was spurred on by the government.as a key figure on the left who has expressed some common ground with the MAHA movement.
In May, the lawmaker rolled out a comprehensive plan to address what he called an epidemic of chronic disease, appropriating language that Kennedy and his health coalition have frequently employed.
“We should not be fighting that movement,” Booker said of MAHA during remarks at the Center for American Progress in May. “We should be telling those moms and dads that they are right. Right about the chemicals. Right about the ultra-processed foods.
Right about the chronic disease. Right that something is profoundly broken. ”The New Jersey Democrat’s proposal would, among other things, scale up federal food aid programs and pioneer farm-to-table nutrition schemes for schools and the military. And in the words of MAHA activists themselves, it’s an appealing bid.
“If a Democrat were to say to me, ‘Hey, we’ve got this plan. ’ I would say, ‘Sure, I would vote for you,’” Claire Dooley, who
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