Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark - Debunking MAHA Lies and Explaining Year 1 Trump Controversies | Calley Means
Episode Date: November 4, 2025Calley Means, who served as a special government employee at the White House, is co-founder of TrueMed and leader of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, unpacks what’s really happening b...ehind the scenes of MAHA: Trump’s rumored pharma incentives, the rise in early puberty and infertility, criticism of RFK Jr., and what MAHA has planned heading into year two.Thank you to our sponsors!TAYLOR DUKES WELLNESS: Use code "ALEXCLARK" for 10% off your purchase ANCIENT CRUNCH (MASA CHIPS): "REALALEXCLARK" for 25% OFF first time ordersPRIMALLY PURE: Use code “ALEXCLARK” to get 15% OFFA'DEL NATURAL COSMETICS: Use code "ALEX" for 25% off first time orders UTZY: Use code “ALEX” for 20% off, OR use code “FIXMYLIFE” for an extra 10% on product subscriptions (a total of 25% for your first subscription order) CROWDHEALTH: Use code “CULTURE” to get your first three months for only $99/month at Our Guest:Calley MeansCalley's Links:Instagram: @calleymeansTrueMed Website 👗 Get Alex’s freshest fashion picks and exclusive guest recommendations—delivered straight to your inbox!Sign up for the newsletter HERE: WEEKLY NEWSLETTER SIGNUPFOLLOW ALEX:Instagram | @realalexclarkInstagram | @cultureapothecaryFacebook | @realalexclarkX | @yoalexrapzYouTube | @RealAlexClarkSpotify | Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark Apple Podcast | Culture Apothecary with Alex ClarkJoin the Cuteservatives Facebook group to connect with likeminded friends who love America and all things health and wellness! Join the CUTEservative Facebook Group!Subscribe to ‘Culture Apothecary’ on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. New episodes drop 6pm PST/ 9pm EST every Monday and Thursday.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Polling says that parents overwhelmingly support vaccinating their children.
Those polls are BS.
That's like saying, do you support food or do you support drugs?
It's like which one.
Those polls are being done by pharmaceutical companies to kind of skew the debate.
What are Trump and Bobby Kennedy's goals for Maha year two?
There is going to be an explosion of Maha legislation going into next year.
Self-inted out of schools, physical activity, school lunches, medical freedom.
Anyone concerned about why children are so sick in this country need to enthue.
enthusiastically support MAGA and be praying that this coalition that President Trump has put together is the dominant political force over the next 10 years because we are getting a lot done, but we are not scratching the surface.
Since the last time we had Callie Means on this podcast, a lot has changed.
What started as a disruptive wellness movement is now shaping national policy, influencing the White House, shaking up the NIH and putting big food and big pharma on defense.
Callie Means is the co-founder of TrueMed, a former political insider turned health reformer,
and one of the boldest voices behind the Make America Healthy Again movement, or Maha.
If you've seen him on the Charlie Kirk Show, Tucker Carlson's podcast,
or working alongside RFK Jr. and President Trump's new health policy team,
you know he's not afraid to go after the systems that are making Americans sick and profiting from it.
In this conversation, we get into the latest on Maha from controversy surrounding President Trump
offering pharma companies a break if they may be.
manufacture in the U.S. to early puberty in girls, the rising infertility crisis, allegations that
RFK Jr. is a quack and even pressing him on claims that he's using his special government
role to grow his personal business. If you care about the future of health, the truth about
chronic disease, or simply want to understand what Maha is actually doing inside this administration,
don't skip this. Callie is one of the most popular guests we've ever had on this show. We're happy to
have him back. Watch this episode on the real Alex Clark YouTube channel or culture apothecary on
Spotify. This show is free, but one of the most impactful ways you can support us so that we can
stay a free show is by pausing the episode before we start in leaving a five-star review. That can happen
on Spotify or Apple. Join the Kutzervitus Facebook group to discuss the show and meet like-minded
women and send this episode to the liberal in your life who is skeptical of Maha. Today's episode
is brought to you by the All-New Jevity Studio. Please welcome New York Times best-selling
co-author of Good Energy, founder of TrueMed, and special government employee to HHS
and the Trump admin, Callie Means, to Coltshire Apothecary.
Since the last time we talked, everything has changed.
Can you talk about what you've been doing with the Trump admin and Bobby?
I think we've seen one of the most important political movements and most successful
political movements in the past year with Maha just a year ago at a turning point event,
RFK came out and endorsed President Trump.
And I think what we've accomplished in the past year from Secretary Kennedy in this movement
going from outside advocates to at the seat of power is extraordinary.
in one year, we have opened up a conversation on medical freedom. We're able to talk about
Ted Booth subjects we've never been able to talk about before. We're going to be releasing nutrition
guidelines and revolutionize school food, military food. We are going to have front-and-packed food
labeling. We're taking food chemicals, dangerous chemicals out of the food supply. I mean,
you can just go down the list. Additionally, the NIH completely and utterly transformed. For 40 years,
the NIH was run by Dr. Fauci and Zackalites. They're actually asking autism, what's causing
Alzheimer's, what's causing diabetes, what's causing all these issues. They're asking root
cause questions. So the amount of change and how fast that's happened is extraordinary.
This is a long-term, messy conversation. But Donald Trump deserves unbelievable credit for sitting
in that desk every single day and having Bobby's back and encouraging him to go against
special interests and ask tough questions. What is your title or role? Because you're a special
government employee, right? I'm a special government employee at the White House, really tasks with
making Maha successful. I think that women, young people, independence, they broke extraordinarily for
President Trump in this election. And there is a deep sense in every single meeting of the
commitment we have to those voters. You know, it's amazing being in these meetings, we're talking about
food issues, we're talking about pharmaceutical issues. And it's so clear in previous administrations,
the voice of the American child, the voice of the American mother was not at those tables.
and every single meeting, the voice of the voters that came together on this issue.
And Maha is a complex issue.
I think it's many different components.
But I think the through line that's talked about every single day in the administration that I feel a huge obligation to advocate for is the children and mothers and their cries for why kids are getting so sick.
And every single day that voter constituencies talked about were winning arguments.
And that's what I'm there to advocate for.
My goal in life is that this is remembered as one of the most important political reliance in American history.
And I think that's a long-term messy endeavor.
But we are trying, and my focus is on delivering for MAHA voters and keeping this coalition alive.
And for anyone concerned about children's health.
And I can tell you this with full certainty from seeing inside that room,
anyone concerned about why children are so sick in this country need to enthusiastically support.
Maga and be praying that this coalition that President Trump has put together is the dominant political
force over the next 10 years because we are getting a lot done this year, but we are not scratching
the surface. This is a 10-year endeavor. And that's not to set expectations. That's not to tell people
to not be, you know, to be patient or not be advocating for change. This is the political system
in America. We have a democracy. We need to have time to transform the foundations of how we think
about our food and think about our health. And I know what you're saying. It's not to discourage people
and voters. It's saying Maha has to be something that we vote for every single presidential election,
you know, at least for the next two cycles. I've been saying Maha transcends MAHA. It has to.
I see it as there is, it's much wider than politics. Charlie Kirk talked about this all the time.
I don't think his goal was partisan politics. It was, you know, a spiritual and cultural transformation in the country.
I think Mahas in a very similar vein.
I think the success of Mahas is much larger than policy change.
It's a true, you know, I think cultural transformation and respect for our health,
respect for children's respect for our soil.
But I will say it is so clear when we're debating on the political lens,
there's no competition here.
The right, MAGA is taking this issue up.
30 state governors have passed Maha legislation in the states.
You have senators and congressmen on the right fighting for, you know, common sense, maha things in the opposition from the Democrats.
And President Trump has seized this.
Filtering these ideas through politics is unreservedly, I think, supporting the MAGA side.
Now, as far as the timing, I think a lot about the abortion issue.
When Roe v. Wade was enacted, the Federalist Society in 1982 formed.
And they said, we are going to reverse Roe v.
Wade.
And this was a life and death issue, too.
and huge passion, an unruly base, and it took 40 years.
So they planned a very calculated effort to get their ideas into schools,
get their ideas to politicians, get their ideas to presidential candidates.
But in 1982, the idea of conservative justice was unheard of.
All the justices were liberal.
And it was a 40-year effort with many, many times where the base said,
you're not moving hard enough, you're not pushing fast enough.
This is life and death.
But there was a strategy.
And if you're playing for change in the political system, you have to think long term.
And that's how we're thinking about Maha.
Like if we can embed these ideas into the core of the party and into the core politics and win the argument.
And I would argue we had not fully won the argument yet.
We need to win the argument in order to win.
That's a long-term endeavor, even though it's a life and death issue.
When you talk about the strategy that the pro-life movement used over those 40 years and how it was it was a little bit slow, but it was very,
very strategic and obviously they ended up getting it done. Is that similar or in the similar vein
as how you feel we should be approaching the vaccine topic, which I know some people are upset.
They don't think that we're moving fast enough. You're saying like you need to give it time.
This is basically like a religion to people. We can't just pull the rug out.
I would say this. If you are looking for radical, dramatic, immediate change, you should not be
looking to Washington C and the government. And that's not to say anything that, you know, be more
patient or get in line. It's just the reality of our system. In our system, and I grew up in D.C., right,
it's incremental change. I talked to Newt Gingrich about this question recently, who I think arguably put
together one of the most successful coalitions, the contract with America, that was a 10-point plan
that they ran of, and drove real change in the 1990s, I think more than almost any time in American history
of conservative change. And he said, you are being a fool to not focus on anything other than winning the
argument in the next two years. We haven't fully won the argument on vaccines. If, you know,
that's an issue very important. Do you polls still show a lot of mixed opinions of that? We have not
fully won the argument that the medical system is incentivized for us to be sick. I mean,
you and I know that to be true. And there's so many people around us and there's people waking up
on that question. But when you look at polls, there's still the highest trust of any person in the
medical system is doctors, as medical groups. So I think we still have a lot to do. So I think we still have a lot to
to make our views the consensus in America
to have 70% of people agree with them.
It would be, I think, the most destructive thing
to the movement to not engage on all sides,
to not try to find compromise,
to not try to find incremental change.
Because if we push too hard
where the American people aren't there,
we're going to kill the movement.
You're saying it would be a mistake
to fully rely on government to do that
this is really a cultural spiritual work.
Like, we need to educate people
on the cultural level
to kind of get this movement going.
Like, it's more up to you.
And you and I. People should be radical and uncompromising in their daily personal lives. I think
our public school system is absolutely broken. We're looking at homeschooling or looking at a radical
type of school. I have severe concerns with pediatricians, the vaccine schedule, the
pharmaceutical industrial complex. We are making bold decisions with our children. I think we're
on the verge of a food collapse in this country. And I think our food system and what we're feeding
our kids is an existential problem in this country. I'm making those choices.
for my child. I think the political system, the federal political system, the most important thing
it does, it's a tool to drive market change. We have to drive market change. We have to have,
and the most important accomplishment, my opinion, is that parents are asking more questions of
their pediatricians, that parents are making different decisions about what they're eating.
Snacking of ultra-processed food has gone down 7% this year. There's dramatic changes in how we think
about vaccines, how we think about drugs for kids. Parents are asking dramatically more
questions before they accept that SSRI for their teenage daughter or the Adderall for their son.
That's where we need to change. That's our battle line. And we are winning that battle. And I think what's
happening with this Maha movement now being at the center of politics is we're legitimizing those
conversations and speeding up that market change. The world will change if the market changes. The market is
above politics. But the market is very skewed. And there's trillions of dollars of incentives that are
trying to jam those drugs down your child's throat and jam ultra-processed food down their throat.
and a lot of lower income people particularly are really, really suffering from those incentives.
The strategy is we need to do dramatic policy change, and we've had dramatic policy change in the next year,
and we're going to have more in the following year.
We have to bring the market there, too.
When people say, well, polling says that parents overwhelmingly support vaccinating their children,
what's your response to that?
My response is those polls are BS, because what does it even mean to say, do you support vaccinations?
and that's what those polls say.
I mean, okay, people are going about their business.
They've been told for decades that those are, you know, perfect products.
And do you support vaccinations?
That's 72 different shots, right?
That's like saying, do you support food or do you support drugs?
It's like which one?
So that's a very, very purposely, and I'll say deliberately misleading question,
those polls are being done by pharmaceutical companies to kind of skew the debate.
and give talking points to people that you're probably hearing them from.
I could create a poll where 90% of people agree on the other side.
I could do a poll saying,
do you support sexually transmitted disease therapeutic for a baby in their second hour of life?
If the mom tested a negative for that disease,
and there's really no other documented way the child can get it,
90% of people would say no to that.
I could ask a question, do you think it should be aggressively studied
why the United States gives two times more shots than Norway and other leading European countries.
And is that an appropriate thing to scrutinize? And do you think it's appropriate for parents to
have the option of having the Norway schedule? Most people would agree with that. I could do a
poll saying Japan and other countries are experimenting and seeing positive effects with spacing
vaccines out and giving them later on in life. And that shows the lower rates of various
comorbidities. Should we take a hard look at that and give parents the option to follow the
Japanese route 90% of people would say yes to that. So I think what the medical industrial
complex is doing is they're heartened by the polls saying there's support for vaccines,
whatever that means. And they're using that to just aggressively impugn Secretary Kennedy,
and I don't think it's going to work. What I think we're leading towards is a mantra and a
and a vibe for what the Republican Party is doing
is that we are the party of bravery.
That's what I see in the White House right now.
We are turning over every stone.
We are talking about cell phone usage.
We are talking about food.
We are talking about over-medicalization.
We are talking about vaccines.
We are talking about every single possible issue
that could impact our children's health
and putting together a thesis
that there's something clearly wrong happening.
Okay, well, let's talk about pesticides.
Does Bobby Kennedy feel between,
trade by congressional Republicans on this chemical liability shield.
What I see from Secretary Kennedy is that he sees in President Trump and generally how the
Republican Party has embraced this movement as the most inspiring, surprising, and positive
development in his life and almost a spiritual issue.
In just a year, an entire party has dramatically shifted the Overton window and
dramatically shifted policy preferences to battle for children's health.
No, I don't think people in the White House are frustrated at all.
I think we're inspired by the conversation happening.
But let's take pesticides.
In the past three months, I've met with over 100 farming groups, gone to a bunch of farms.
I've traveled around the country.
And I've been probably more inspired by those conversations than almost anything.
And here's why.
it's because this conversation is really messy.
I've talked to farmers who are going bankrupt.
They are getting killed right now.
Farmers are getting absolutely killed.
And 99% of corn in this country is sprayed with pesticides.
They feel assaulted with tariffs, with low commodity prices, with weather, with all these other liberal policies that have been absolutely screwing them.
They're like, oh, great, now we're being lectured on how to farm.
So I actually think the fact that we're having these conversations,
The fact that Secretary Kennedy certainly has strong opinions on pesticides, and so do I.
But he's in power now.
And the fact that these conversations have to happen, if these conversations don't happen face to face, what is the other option?
Well, I understand what the farmers are saying.
But my question is, Callie, shouldn't the American consumer be able to sue the chemical company if they get sick by their product?
And isn't that the question?
There are efforts at every single moment in states.
There's been decades of efforts on Congress on various loopholes like that.
And I don't know how far along that is.
The White House hasn't made a comment.
I think the idea that there's going to be unrelenting efforts to protect industries from Congress and other routes is obvious.
That's not disappointing.
That's obvious.
And we'll see how that plays out.
Secretary Kennedy hasn't talked about.
The White House hasn't talked about it.
Congress, that's going to happen in Congress.
there's going to be a lot of efforts to help industry.
I'd say higher level, what's happening is that every single board meeting in this country
of a food company or an agriculture company, first order business is talking about this
tidal wave of voter outcry about what's happening to our food.
That's a fact.
And, you know, this Maha report that was released, you know, it's real.
I mean, I will say everyone understands there's a problem.
Everybody understands there's a problem of how we prioritize food, of how we have 70% of our child's diet ultra-process where it's 10% in France.
Everyone behind closed doors admits there's a serious problem.
And they understand there's a problem with soil health.
And there's a ton of positive initiatives we're doing to improve soil health, to grow more with less inputs, things like that.
Saying that pesticide should be banned tomorrow isn't a viable option.
Right.
It's just not.
The fact that we're having these messy conversations and getting action, you know, to me is extremely aspiring.
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70% of my audience is new in the last year.
I mean, because the show, we rebranded and we gained a lot of new people, which has been
awesome.
But those people may not have heard our first conversation on the spillover, which is the name
of the show before I rebranded with you, where we really go into the nitty-gritty
on why the food and pharmaceutical industries in America are so corrupt.
So in a summary, can you explain to the American people why the Make America Healthy Again movement is so necessary?
I think that interests that profit from Americans being sick have co-opted every institution that we grew up being told to trust.
So the pharmaceutical industry is the single largest contributor to pharmaceutical ads.
We've talked about this before we go on news a lot.
And it's so pernicious how they're reflexive.
inclination is not to ask how COVID could be clearly tied to metabolic health, why 16% of
COVID deaths in the world were American citizens when we're 4% of the world's population.
But really say that pseudoscience misinformation, talk about any link between COVID and our
underlying metabolic health, which is the result of all these external factors, and say you
are a war criminal for questioning this pharmaceutical product.
It's very pernicious.
So that's the media.
Academic research, the lifeblood of academic research,
is hundreds of billions of dollars from pharmaceutical companies.
66% of psychiatrists in the United States,
this is on a government website,
have taken money from SSRI makers,
direct payments, direct bribes.
It's actually legal to do.
You just have to put on a website.
66% of all psychiatrists in this country have taken those payments.
The American Academy Pediatrics,
the American Medical Association,
the American Psychiatric Association,
these are pharmaceutical groups.
They're 90% funded by pharmaceuticals.
And then through decades of the fact that lawmakers themselves, they're paid more by the pharmaceutical
and insurance industries than any other industry times three have made the laws such that we've
outsourced medical decision making to these groups, the American cat and pediatrics.
They actually are able to set the codes for where CMS pays money so that when you're at a pediatrician's
office, if they go against the embedded logic from these groups, they could lose their
license. That's why they, you know, recommend ultra-processed food as the first food for kids to eat. That's
why they, you know, basically kick you out of the practice if you don't take the pharmaceutical
products on their exact schedule. Also, through the description, they have kickbacks where they actually
get more money for prescribing drug. The quality metrics that doctors and pediatricians are
incentivized on where they get millions of dollars of payments from the metric, the primary quality
metric is whether patients are taking the drugs, not whether they're healthy. So that's kind of
the medical industry, the lawmakers, the top
donators are pharmaceutical industries. And then, you know,
it's not that pharma's all bad. We're having a lot of
conversation with pharma. But as a primary statement of economic fact,
the institutions that influence our health care
make more money when an American, particularly a child is sick
and lose money when they're healthy. Farma makes money when more drugs are prescribed.
Insurance companies make money when Costco up. Interestingly,
hospitals make money when beds are full.
And this is the largest,
the country. And what Bobby Kennedy and President Trump are now seeing in government is that these
forces, these really powerful forces, just bear down on the White House. It's impossible even
know where they're coming from. But there's so many jobs, so much money, so much dignity of all these
med school deans and all these scientists where their fundamental incentive structure of their
industry is being questioned. It's just barreling down in so many misdirected ways. And I, again,
And think this first year of Maha has been extraordinarily successful.
You know, you look at the unrelenting negative press.
For the haters.
Yeah.
In this first year of the Trump administration, what has Maha accomplished?
In the first year of the Trump administration, the Maha movement has accomplished more significant public health reforms than at any time in modern history.
You have these influencers and scientists often make a similar argument.
They say, well, Bobby Kennedy is right about what he's saying.
generally that we're really sick and the incentives are screwed up, but he hasn't done anything.
And then they list in these podcasts. They always list what they would do. And they list exactly
what we've done. We have taken soda and candy off of SNAP. Snap is a $120 billion program.
It's the fourth large entitlement program in the country. Fifteen percent of Americans depend on
this program for food. It's a massive disorder of worldwide agriculture incentives. We spent so much money
on SNAP. The number one item was soda. This is the number one agenda point for the American
Beverage Association. Every lobbyist in D.C. said this is so important to Coca-Cola and the other
companies, it will never change. And it changed in three months. Now, 30 states are working with the federal
government to remove soda and candy from SNAP. We have transformational nutrition guidelines
coming out in the first year. They're going to be coming out very soon. Maybe by the time this is out.
For decades, we've been living under the thumb of nutrition guidelines where 95% of advisors
were paid for by food companies. So President Biden's team that gave us the initial recommendation
that we were supposed to rubber stamp,
we've thrown them in the trash.
We've thrown them in the trash.
They said the number one prism
for the dietary guidelines under President Biden,
what we were supposed to rubber stamp
was health equity.
What does that mean?
That means that we should just recommend
cheap, crappy food
because it's cheaper,
because there's health equity disparities,
that it's actually racist
to recommend whole healthy food.
That is the argument aggressively
from the nutrition guidelines.
the equity lens, the affordability lens, has infiltrated into the science when the nutrition
guidelines should just be recommending what is the best possible food to eat. It's not the job of
the nutrition guidelines to set food prices. I guess I just don't understand, Callie,
and maybe I'm totally ignorant. I'm open to being ignorant. But what is their argument? I mean,
that African American people don't have access to fruits and vegetables. You're going to the
grocery store to get the soda. Why can't you just go and aisle over to use your snap or whatever
it is on the other things? Like if they're saying it's racist, I don't understand this
argument. The argument is that because food is expensive, healthy food, it's racist to recommend it
because so many people are struggling with their income. So the best we can possibly do is recommend
the cheapest possible food. That is the overriding assumption in nutrition science today.
I'll just stress this again. The primary lens of the previous administration's nutrition guidelines
was not health of children. It was affordability. So these companies are able to weaponize these issues
like transphobia, fat phobia, massage. With our food? With our food. Dei has infiltrated the
nutrition science debate by making hunger and affordability the primary focus and not nutrition.
It's very pernicious. So then how can we make it so it is affordable for them to get
healthier food. Here's what the strategy for the ministry. And I think what's happening with
nutrition guidelines are extremely important. So first, nutrition guidelines are going to come out.
That you can't even believe this, but for the first time in American history, actually take a stand
on highly processed food. Under President Biden, the USDA put out a report saying a child's diet,
91% in ultra-processed food could be healthy. And this is what the scientists do. They say it's
nuanced and complicated. Let me just explain this very clearly. If we can have a national effort,
which is happening right now,
to have a simple message
of getting whole real food
on a child's plate,
we would wipe out
so many of the diseases
that are significantly higher,
six times higher childhood obesity
in America than in Europe,
six times higher childhood diabetes
in America than Europe.
This would be a trillion dollar budget savings.
The reason we're spending
so much in healthcare
is because we're sick, right?
So that message
has never been given by the USDA.
Still, to this day,
you know, we're in the food pyramid
from the 1990s.
Grains are the most,
recommended food group, added sugar. They say it's okay for a two-year-old to be a healthy
part of a two-year-old's diet. It's crazy. And that's all from this co-option of this,
you know, toxic empathy that, you know, yes, that poor people are too poor. They're too
stupid to not poison their kids. That's what seems racist to me. The food industry is also
weaponized feminism. The food industry has executed a multi-decade argument that become
because moms are so busy and because it's so hard to afford healthy food, that it is actually
sexist to expect moms to provide healthy food for their kids. It is pernicious, it is blatant.
When we meet with the food industry today, the highest ranking food industry, they implicitly
accuses of being sexist for suggesting that mom should be cooking whole food for their kids.
and there's a underlying theme that it's unrealistic.
And we're living in kind of a 1950s pre-feminist,
bizarre world for the government to have that message.
Let's kick cook whole food for kids.
It's very disturbing.
The apparatus of the U.S. nutrition system thinks that Americans are too poor,
too stupid, too lazy to cook healthy food for their kids.
So these nutrition guidelines are going to rebut that legacy of the food pyramid,
its legacy of the decades, and recommend whole food.
Now, what does that do?
That then flows into school procurement for lunches.
It flows into military.
It flows into hospital foods.
It does?
Yes.
The nutrition guidelines are one of the most important policy documents in the country
because by law, it sets standards for really wherever the government touches food.
So hundreds of billions of dollars, at least, of direct government payments flow from the nutrition guidelines.
And when we let those guidelines, starting with the food pyramid, be co-opted by special interests, that led to the hundreds of millions of dollars, billions of dollars of government payment for alter processed food.
The school lunches have to abide by the nutrition guidelines, military food.
You won't believe this, but the various interests have really whipped.
up this concern about saturated fat, which is really concerned about protein. So the dietary guidelines
have actually really demonized protein, essentially, and said that the plate should really be,
you know, a lot of grains. Not even whole grains, processed grains. They've never taken a stand on whole
grains being better than processed grains. And I've talked to a lot of military folks, and Secretary
Hegg said that's very amped up on this. But on military basis, they can't really serve steak
to soldiers.
What? Because steak is considered, steak is considered worse than Doritos, according to the dietary
guidelines, truly. Process grains, fine, steak, bad. It's recommended against. So we, and then it just
gets very basic. So we have an epidemic of obesity and chronic disease among soldiers,
obviously among kids. And, you know, what if we just serve them steak, some broccoli,
some whole grains? I don't think we'd have as big of a problem. It's very simple. It directly will
impact hundreds of billions of dollars of procurement. And then what if we do get to a question
about affordability? What if we do get to that question? I somewhat dispute the premise that
America mothers can't afford not to poison their kids. I don't agree with that. And I think
you'll see a lot of public health messaging about how you can actually cook healthy on a budget.
Let's just take that aside, the premise being wrong. Say it is right. We subsidize food.
so much in this country. We subsidize older processed food so much. Congress has voted literally for
trillions of dollars of food subsidies over the past couple of decades, agriculture subsidies.
Additionally, let's just think about just overall resources. We spend 6% of our federal budget
and just national income when you combine government and personal income on food and 23% on
health care. So we're prioritizing drugging people much more than just not poisoning them in the
first place. It's reversed in Europe. In Europe, they spend two times more per capita than us on food
and three times less on health care. So as a society, I don't think Americans voted for this. In America,
we have voted for throwing a fit if we recommend, you know, slightly increased money on school lunches,
but let's give all kids Ozzympic. Let's give all kids Ozzypick for hundreds of dollars,
hundreds of dollars a month on Medicaid, but not think about what they're eating. So the idea
that there's this cost issue when we're going bankrupt from healthcare costs in this country. It's
what the shutdown's about. Like the healthcare costs are like the biggest part of the U.S.
budget. 30% of the U.S. federal budget. So that's what this is getting to. It's really an overarching
prioritization conversation. So the nutritional guidelines are going to be huge and you're expecting
that before the end of the year. Other Maha wins that we've accomplished year one. For the pack food
labeling. I think the autism announcement, the NIH represents a real cultural shift where they're
asking real questions about why we're getting sick. The NIH 95%
percent of their budget prior to this administration was spent on pharmaceutical R&D. Pharmaceutical R&D.
Now, that's being maligned by the media. But what an amazing change. It's amazing that this is
being taxed so much that the NIH, which spends $50 billion a year on research, is actually
marshaling from the top. Let's answer why people are getting sick. That's actually a profound
change. I'd also say it's very notable that Brooke Rollins and Secretary Kennedy are taking on
the food industry and special interests more than any administration in history, the SNAP reform,
front-of-packed food labeling reform. We have an ultra-processed food definition coming up. Operation Storkspeed.
We're refining and finally looking at baby formula, which hasn't been done in decades.
And what about the presidential fitness test?
Presidential fitness test. I mean, this is what we're going to see going to the midterms, right?
This administration, working with states, is aggressively working throughout the country to get kids moving with the presidential fitness test.
The administration is supporting local and state efforts to get cell phones out of schools.
Those bills are sweeping the country.
We're taking a sledgehammer to over-medicalization, and the FDA is looking really hard at why so many girls are getting SSI prescriptions, how many boys are getting out of our prescriptions, why we have this over-medicalization crisis.
We are reforming our food system and school lunches and taking on ultra-processed food more than any time in modern American history.
And then what about the revamping on the vaccine?
committee or whatever. We're turning over every stone. Secretary Kennedy, President Trump's support.
I mean, this all goes to President Trump giving Secretary Kennedy air cover, fired the absolutely
corrupt and conflicted people on the ASIP committee. And what have they done? They have removed the COVID
recommendation. So they're saying it's so dangerous. Everyone's reading these articles that's so
dangerous. They took the COVID vaccine recommendation from a blanket recommendation for six-month-olds.
So you want to talk about polling, right? 90% of parents already made that decision themselves and
we're going against the CDC guidance, right? The next dangerous thing they're looking at is a
discussion and a nuanced discussion, which hasn't been decided yet on Hep B, which is an STV drug.
So they're actually a diversity of opinions now on vaccines.
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So I'm treating on. The left says that we are gutting cancer research. You know, what do you say about that?
Is the Trump admin taking money away from cancer research? The Trump administration is steering
more money to foundational research about why we're getting sick and focusing the entire academic
community on that question more than any administration in history. The NIH budget is still
$50 billion. Congress hasn't changed that. There's a total revamp of that. I feel like the
criticisms of Maha, right? It's almost like these essays were written before Bobby Kennedy took over.
And I want to make this really clear. If Secretary Kennedy, President Trump were executing perfectly,
perfectly on the Maha agenda, there'd be the same amount of attacks. It is guaranteed.
that there will be unrelenting delegitimization of what's happening because there's so many
interests at threat. So the essays are already written. It's just like, let's find like the bullet
points. And the fact that their top bullet points right now is that ASIP took the COVID vaccine off
the schedule when everyone already got 85% of healthcare workers were going against the CEC advice.
And they're saying people can't get it if they want. So that's literally bullet point number one of criticism.
So if that's the strongest bullet point of why Bobby Kinney's.
is killing people, we're winning.
Bullet point number two is this vague
assault on cancer research.
Cancer research has been
an unmitigated failure.
It just reashamed themselves.
The lack of humility from the medical system,
which spends $300 billion a year
on cancer care as cancer rates go up.
Richard Nixon, 50 years ago,
said that the war on cancer has begun
and we're going to solve cancer in five years.
It's been the costliest and deadliest
war ever launched. We're 50 years after that, and we have the record high rates, rates of cancer
today, ever. The United States, as a society, in 2025, has the highest rates of adult and pediatric
cancer of any society in the history of human civilization today. Now, people say, well,
the death rates have gone out all about. Yes, exactly. We spend $300 billion not to cure it.
None of that research is going to actually cure and prevent. It's going to slightly
ameliorate. It's all about management. And yes, we're taking a hard look at how we do cancer rate.
But just as a factual statement, as a factual statement, research has not been cut. That talking point
is based on some grants being pulled. 19% of NIH grants went to DEI. 19%. I cannot express
how weaponized these cultural issues are used to basically protect the existing system. We've moved
some grants, but show me the evidence of cuts.
What do you think of President Trump's deals with the pharmaceutical industry to, you know,
bring jobs here, take your manufacturing jobs to the United States, and then I'm going to give
you a break on tariffs? Like, is Trump kind of going back on his word with working with
Big Farmers? Oh, no, no. The, bringing the pharmaceutical companies the table is,
should be supported by every single Mahavala. Why? The pharmaceutical lobbying group had an
emergency meeting two weeks ago because they are so destabilized and caught off guard.
because President Trump is negotiating one by one with each pharmaceutical company and bringing them each into the Oval Office, cutting deals on pharmaceutical pricing.
These deals are primarily around pharmaceutical pricing.
Right now, for many leading drugs, the pharmaceutical companies, when they make the drugs here, they charge Americans 10 times more than Europe.
So with the MAA perspective, right, it's not ban all pesticides, ban all drugs.
It's we need really strong critical thinking on these things and really strong incentives.
that we have whole healthy food and that we have therapeutics where there's unmitigated
patient consent, informed consent, patient choice, medical freedom. It's not to abolish the
entire pharmaceutical industry. There are drugs many people watching. Strong Maha supporters take
or their children take. Those drugs are often 10 times more expensive than they are in Europe,
which President Trump was outraged by. And this has been talked about for decades. People on the far left
from Bernie Sanders to people in the far right have been talking about us getting ripped off from
drug pricing for the past two decades. And President Trump said, enough with this BS, enough with all
these advisors telling me how it's going to change just a little bit or we can't do anything,
he started negotiating with individual companies. And he's brought Pfizer in. He's brought other
major companies in. And it's dramatically lowering drug prices. So this is something that's a strong use of
power against the pharmaceutical industry. This is something where by next year, people are going to
see dramatically lower costs for drugs. And these drugs that the U.S. taxpayer, you know, has really
funded, you know, we're not going to be ripped off on the back end. The United States right now
is 4% of the world's population and produces 75% of worldwide pharmaceutical profits. It's crazy.
75% of worldwide profits for the pharmaceutical industry. So President Trump,
Trump felt very strongly about that.
He marshaled Dr. Oz and Secretary Kennedy to negotiate.
And I'll tell you, I'll just say this right now, President Trump led that negotiating strategy.
It was unbelievable.
So I think picking apart the, you know, company by company to get prices lower, it's a strong show of power.
It's a strong, it's not something they like.
So President Trump just made a huge announcement with Bobby Kennedy about IVF.
What I am concerned about with this move is that, again, we are prescribing a Band-Aid to a rising infertility crisis.
in women from pharma and not looking into the root cause of what is causing infertility.
That is my concern with just telling women, we're going to make it just easier for you to get
IVF instead of, you know, supporting something like Napro technology, which is getting to the
root cause of infertility.
What do you have to say about that?
I agree.
We have a spiritual crisis in this country with fertility.
It's a metabolic issue.
I think the question which Charlie hit on all the time of why we're choosing not to have kids is a much
people cultural spiritual issue.
I think this administration is scratching those questions and opening those questions
harder and more aggressively than we could have ever imagined.
And I would see that announcement as one important pillar in an overarching strategy
where it's unrelenting action.
So you're saying there's more going on to look into women's health.
Even in the speech, Martin McCarrie, RFK, Idy Overton, who.
is that the White House talked about how this is one part of a overarching strategy, you know,
to absolutely, you know, if there's a certain line where a woman chooses that she needs this,
it's going to be more affordable. But this is a much, much larger strategy. Let me just say this.
Let me just go to like next year, November voting next year. We are going to have a tidal wave
of activity to improve school lunches, to reduce cell phone usage, right? To get more physically active.
I think there's a spiritual awakening, thanks to Charlie in the country.
I mean, there's so much disruption happening.
There's so many conversations.
There's so many policies happening on all the areas that impact our metabolic health, impact, potentially fertility.
In addition to these cultural questions, I think we're having, you know, really robust conversations around religion, around feminism, around really complex topics.
That to me is like what I see at the White House.
Like, like, there's conversations and there's things happening that are much wider than even our understanding.
But there's an encouragement to be having these conversations.
So that IVF announcement, it was actually said this is one part of a much larger strategy.
And that is for women, you know, who are getting ripped off at the end of that fertility journey when they feel like they need that.
And I think that's really important.
RFK is being called a dangerous quack for saying that girls as young as five and six are getting puberty.
Is he wrong?
The New York Times had a front page article about this saying it was a major issue and nobody knows why.
I can't think of a more blaring warning sign that for many children, puberty is happening five to six years younger and five to six year olds, according to New York Times and Harvard and other places of the researchers are now hitting puberty.
It's pronounced happening in the United States versus other countries. In the United States, our hormones are under unrelenting assault from almost the first day of life.
And this is where the nuanced, complicated conversation comes in, quite frankly. You know, we just have.
have to accept reality. But why are our hormones being disrupted? Well, it's because of our food,
obviously. It's because of light. It's because of our cell phones. It's because of chronic stress.
You know, it's because of a whole host of issues. Plastic chemicals. Right, right. You probably
have no plastic. But most people watching probably wouldn't want to ban all plastic. They wouldn't want to
ban their cell phones, right? It's not about that. But this is a very complex conversation. And for
Bobby Kennedy to talk about this blaring warning sign and then be castigated by the medical
elite for talking about this really dramatic and horrifying situation that really is the tip of
iceberg of much wider things happening. It just shows you what we're dealing with.
I just wonder what the wider implications could be of that, you know, girls starting puberty
so early, if that could affect their fertility years later, who knows? Is the White House looking
into this at all? The NIH is being steered to ask all of these questions.
Okay. Secretary Kennedy never, ever says what the answer should be or really wants to influence
He wants to open up wider questions about why girls are hitting puberty so much earlier, about the impact of microplastics, which is specifically cited as a research priority in the Maha report.
The Maha Strategy document outlines about 40 different research areas for the NIH. They're going to shift that $50 billion of funding towards microplastics are on there.
We need to understand these issues. And I think, you know, we all know high level where this answer gets to. We need, we need.
need to understand these external factors that are impacting our health, impacting our fertility,
impacting our mental health. And we need to have a real conversation, you know, with the $5 trillion
dollars we spend a year on health care, how we can ameliorate and reduce these exposures and get back
to basics. And I think this conversation we're having about getting back to basics and realizing
and respecting these external factors that are impacting our happiness and health is vital, particularly
in the next 10 years, as there will inevitably be a lot of technological change. We've got to get back to
basics at the same time. Another really alarming stat is that men's testosterone rates are plummeting.
What can you share about what Maha is doing in terms of research here?
Detosterone and fertility are a top focus of the NIH, according to an official Whitehouse document.
There's a lot being looked into that.
What do you think is causing that, just you personally?
There's so much of a long tail. This is the problem right now. The scientific industry,
as I call it, has convinced us things are really complicated. And there is a complicated
long tail. If your child has a rare disease, right, I pray to God that there's, you know,
funding for researchers figuring that out, and it's very complicated on that long tail.
There's a complicated surgical technique. But 90% of costs in the medical system are lifestyle
chronic conditions. There's a huge, you know, base of things that I don't think are complicated.
I think that's the battle that Secretary Kennedy and the Trump administration are really fighting right now.
For the preponderance of issues, it's not complicated. It's eating whole food. It is getting more
sunlight, which dramatically impacts our hormones. It's being more active. It's managing chronic
stress, prayer, meditation, getting off your cell phone. These simple factors that have changed so
dramatically in the past 30 years. I mean, just, this is what we do, you know, when we talk about this
high level at the White House, right? Just look at differences between us and other countries and look at
changes over the past 30 years. There's so many pronounced differences from the vaccine schedule,
to our food, to our chronic stress and cell phone usage, to our sleep, which is two hours less than it was 100 years ago, right, and dramatically different than European countries.
There's just differences. Things have changed so quickly on simple things. Our body is a complex, you know, machine will never fully understand.
And these, you know, factors that are obviously existential to its continued functioning and thriving have been dramatic.
dramatically changed. Like, that's what it is. I mean, that's what Casey and I got in this fight for.
That's what the book was about, good energy. Like, and then people attack the book and tack Bobby and
say, well, they're just dumbing it down. You know, it's much more nuanced. It's much more complicated.
Yes, on the long tail, but really, it's not. Like, if we can have a national effort to get kids
outside more, 40% of schools don't even require recess right now. That's another initiative we're
really pushing on. Right? It's just like, if we can get back to basics, we are going to transform this
country. And there is so much, so much resistance to that conversation. You have a company
TrueMed, which allows consumers to use their HSA and FSA dollars towards health and wellness,
products and services. How do you respond to concerns that your role in government is indirectly
promoting TrueMed and that your policy advocacy might actually benefit your private business?
So my mom died. I was inspired by my sister and her leaving the medical system. And right after my mom died, where we saw the horrors of the medical system, I said with the case, I'm going to devote my life to this issue. I poured myself into helping her write a book. I started a company asking how can we actually incentivize exercise and healthy food. And I started talking and I started advocating.
where this magical dynamics happen,
where Bobby Kennedy and President Trump
and wider culture started talking about these issues.
We talked about, I met you and I met so many other people.
And this, I think you'd agree,
this like magical coalescing happened
where we all were on the same page
and just thousands of thousands of people
started shipping away at this.
So that led to me being asked to go to the White House
as a special government employee,
like what Elon did.
And I dropped everything, left my first.
family, you know, in Arizona and went to D.C. and did that. So I think what happens is when you are
out there, people try to find an angle. It's every tweet I put, they say I'm part of big wellness
and that I'm a supplement salesman. And I do think that attack is kind of funny, right? It's beware of
the specter of big wellness, which includes, by the way, grocery stores and gyms. And there's no policies
I'm pushing on, right, that impact the company.
I mean, the company operates under existing law,
but I'll say I'm proud to be part of big wellness.
I think big wellness needs a seat at the table.
I think we need people that believe in exercise,
people that believe in vitamin D supplementation,
people that believe in healthy food, regenerative farmers.
There's New York Times articles attacking Secretary Kennedy
for consulting with Mark Hyman, regenerative farmers,
you know, people that are entrepreneurs
and successful business people in wellness.
We know a lot of these.
people in this complicated industry, and I'm not defending the industry in a blanket way.
But I don't think a person exercising and experimenting with supplementation and sunlight and following
your podcast, I'd love to see a study of the cohort of those people and their mental health
and physical health first, an average American.
Me too.
I think those people are on a much better track.
I bet anything on that.
I think it's really important.
I'd tell you, pharmaceutical companies and others are still well represented in Washington,
but the fact that people like Mark Hyman and these people from big wellness who believe in
exercise, sunlight, supplementation, and healthy food, the fact that they're being hurt out,
because they don't have a big lobbyist behind them.
But what they have now is the voters.
We are going to do billions of dollars of research on food as medicine and how, you know,
regenerative, you know, whole food, you know, for diabetic populations on Medicaid, you know,
might be better than the drug route at some point, right, right?
We are going to do so much research on the root cause.
So I think that's really a good thing.
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Your sister, Dr. Casey Means, was nominated for Surgeon General.
First of all, what is a Surgeon General?
What does the Surgeon General do?
And then what is the latest on your sister's nomination?
Because she's like about to have a baby any minute or has.
I don't even know.
And so how does that all work?
So the Surgeon General is a spokesperson for health priorities.
in the country, and it's interesting.
You know, Casey's got an attack, I've got an attack.
I really take a lot of lessons from Secretary Kennedy and President Trump.
I mean, I talked to Casey about the attacks, and she said she's surprised they're not more.
I mean, what we are talking about is radical to entrenched industries.
It's thermodynamics.
If there are ideas being put out there in a political coalition being put together that disrupts
trillions of dollars of, um, interests. I mean, it's what I used to do. It's what my original
career was working for pharma. Like, you find angles and you attack. The lobbies aren't able to get
to President Trump. President Trump's not listening to them. So they've got to create this
controversy. The surgeon general is as a spokesperson. What they're attacking her for is that, uh,
she's not, uh, a slave to the existing medical system and that she's too simplistic. And I personally
believe that what we need in this country is very simple public health messaging.
We need to encourage moms, give them that backbone to ask their pediatrician questions to
give their kids whole food, to think about the metabolic inputs to their children's sunlight,
exercise, things like that. So does the Surgeon General come up with PSAs that like run on TV and
stuff? Yeah, I mean, the most famous contribution for the Surgeon General with the smoking report in the
1980s. And, you know, it's a very similar thing to food where,
there was huge, you know, medical industry opposition to any regulation of cigarettes.
They said it was healthy.
It was similar financial dynamics.
And the surgeon general was able to really conduct research with the NIH and put a, you know,
really dramatic public health warning out there.
And it's interesting, right?
Because today you don't have cigarettes banned, but there was information put out there.
It changed the culture.
It changed the culture.
And I think it was like, you know, 70% of people smoked and now it's much lower.
I think it's kind of a similar trajectory.
We need an ultra-processed food.
And I honestly think that the industry is okay with that, quite frankly.
I've talked to a lot of people in the food industry.
They know we have a problem.
And I hate to use the word incremental, but if we incrementally shift our diet through public health messaging and shift the markets over the next 10 years, we're in a dramatically different place in 10 years.
And I think Casey has the opportunity to do that along the issues that are, you know, what she's talked about and what's in her book.
And I think particularly for a moment right now, you know, the other thing Casey's been attacked on is kind of her background, I guess. I mean, Casey is the most extraordinary human being I've ever met. She is excelled in every single thing she's ever done. President of her Stanford class, top Stanford med school. She was absolutely crushing it in residency. These reporters are saying, oh, she left for anxiety or whatever. She has emails from her attending surgeons saying that she was one of the best residents that they've ever seen in her career. Casey has a
degree of moral courage, a few people I've ever met. And she shocked me when she left the system.
You know, then she started a successful company, wrote the best-selling health book and past a couple
years. I mean, everything she does, and I think it comes from the fact that she is able to go against
the grain and think for herself and think critically. And I think she's going to be horrified with all
of this BS that's infiltrated the Surgeon General's office before. You know, the last Surgeon General said
that medical misinformation was the biggest public health threat to America, not diabetes. I need people to
Be serious. I think she's going to drive simplicity. And I will say, we have done more policy change in the past year than at any time in modern history. But the most important accomplishment of this administration is winning the argument, is changing the market where we cannot look at what the health industry is saying and really accept it anymore, that we have to change perception on an individual level. And we have to continually just push on that argument.
things your listeners know and listen you talk about every day, that has not fully bled into
mass society. We have to win this argument. When is the confirmation hearing? It's, uh, the shutdown's
been problematic. It could, it could be in weeks. Um, you know, it's, it's moving along. I mean,
people are starting, this is another thing I've learned. It government takes a lot of time. People are
just starting, you know, recently that were nominated before the inauguration. So, um, she's been having
good meetings with senators and it should be soon. What are Trump and Bobby Kennedy's goals for
Maha year two? There's a couple elements to this. One thing we're very excited about is we are in touch
with 30 governors right now, 30 governors. And there's going to be an explosion of Maha legislation
going into next year. Along those lines, I talked about cell phones out of schools, physical activity,
school lunches, medical freedom. That's really helpful. We really encourage that. It's much harder for
forces to combat 30 different states and the federal government. So we're really, really excited
that bit. So every single person listening, I can't express this enough, get involved in your state
bills. You've met with and testified at some of the states, I think, in Arizona, who's been
amazing. There's real ability for change. And some of the best bills are actually literally
from individual people in the states going to their lawmakers and they'll take meetings and actually
coming up with new ideas that we didn't even have.
Anybody can testify at your state senate.
And it makes a difference.
School lunch bills and stuff like that.
Like you do not have to be credentialed or have a talk show or have a nutrition degree.
Anyone can do it.
And it makes a big difference.
It moves these bills.
Everyone thought these bills on removing soda from SNAP.
Texas, the single most lobbied bill in the state of Texas last year was to put more transparency
on food labels.
The food industry lobbied against it flew their CEOs on private jets.
and the governor signed it because they said they got more positive calls than any other bill from moms.
I cannot express strong enough when you see bills up for debate in your state legislature,
testify, call your lawmaker, tell them you really support this.
That's really important.
The initiative I talked about, you know, front-of-pack food labeling, grass reform,
where we're actually going to study what's in our food for the first time.
And grass stands for generally recognized as safe foods and products.
Front of pack food labeling, dietary guideline reform.
We're going to have Secretary Kennedy out to implement those initiatives out on military bases, out at schools, recommending these basic things.
I mean, for all he's denigrated, you know, all the denigration he receives in the media, what do you have actually happening?
You have Secretary Kennedy focusing on mental health, healthier lunches, more physical activity.
And then when you get to the pharmaceutical issues, I think we're going to be.
communicating more and showing the results of the true institutional change at FDA, NIH, and CMS.
The FDA is dramatically reforming. Conflicts are getting out of there. We're actually asking
hard questions about these drugs, doing real safety studies, pre and post market. I think it's not as
sexy, but you have real institutional reform being driven at the FDA. You're going to start seeing
next year the fruits of the research transformation that's happening at the NIH, which I think is so
important. You know, that research sounds kind of simple. How does food impact our health? How do
microplastics impact our health? How does artificial light cell phones impact our mental health?
I mean, we might assume some of the answers to this, but substantiating it in billions of dollars
of scientific research within conjunction with the NIH and top academic institutions, that is going
to really change the culture of health, which I think is a really important 10-year goal.
And then what Dr. Ross is doing at CMS is it gets back to what I talked about. The quality metrics for how we
pay money out and care is based on how many drugs are taken. He's actually looking at foundation
changing the quality metrics of where we spend $5 trillion of healthcare spending on actually people
getting healthy. There's a lot of effort to figure out how, you know, that money at CMS can be
taking on the entrenched interest and giving people more decision making with their doctors. So
So that's hard institutional reform work that is happening every day, but I think we'll be seeing much more fruits of that.
But I would say to everyone watching, you know, when we get to the midterms, we will only scratch the surface.
Again, it's that 40-year battle for abortion.
But we've gotten a lot done.
But what all I care about is that this coalition stays together.
Because if we can keep doing that, imagine it the midterms are won.
and that voter coalition grows, that's what drives action.
That's what changes culture.
And if we can keep that coalition going for cycle after cycle after cycle, we might feel like
it's incremental at times.
But we will look back in 10 years and be in a totally transformed place from a policy
perspective, but I think culturally, if you like what's happening, no, keep pushing.
But like the Republican Party is on the side of these issues.
I can't expect.
The bravery that's being exhibited by President Trump to take on special interests is extraordinary.
So with midterms on the line, what do my listeners need to be calling lawmakers and saying next year?
I would strongly support state bills that you agree with and, you know, work to advocate or recommend bills on areas you care about along all the spectrum of Maha, medical freedom, food, healthy kids, healthy schools, more transparent.
I think when you see an acute issue, an acute issue that you see on Twitter or you're animated
by, that you can call your member of Congress and let them know what you think as part of the
Maha Army.
And the calling works.
The calling really works.
So this is my opinion.
Like large, like broad frustration, you know, Bobby's being co-opted, this, that, you know,
there's a tendency on Twitter to be like, like, uh,
it's like existentially bad if one thing goes wrong.
I can promise you that things are going to go the way people don't want and micro instances.
Well, sure.
I would argue in a way, you know, throwing your hands up when one thing happens that we don't fully agree with is somewhat almost politically immature.
There is massive complex conversations happening and interest being weighed that are fair interests.
I mean, we're talking about the entire U.S. healthcare system, the entire U.S. agriculture system.
There's nobody that's fighting harder than Bobby Kennedy and President Trump.
I don't think it's legitimate to say that Secretary Kennedy and President Trump aren't doing any other than fighting aggressively.
What is helpful is calling your senator or congressman or state lawmaker about a specific issue.
If you see something that they're going to vote on that isn't aligned with Maha values, organized to barrage them with calls, and those really, really work.
I think the unruly nature of the Maha coalition is a strength.
It's passion.
There's passion.
I don't think that should be tamped down.
But if that channeled to specific asks,
I think it's politically much more helpful to get things done.
My audience doesn't know this.
Well, I haven't told them on the show, at least.
I have on Instagram, but not on the show.
You and I were very privileged to be asked to be in a documentary on Big Food
that's coming out this Thanksgiving on Apple TV and Amazon Prime.
It's called Breaking Big Food.
There's a huge spotlight specifically on like the clean food and farming system in Arizona, which is cool, which you and I are both Arizona residents.
So can you talk about the documentary with the audience?
I am so excited about this documentary.
I mean, these are two folks, I think who are inspired by your podcast, inspired by what's happening and wanted to just tell the story.
In Arizona, particularly, it's amazing.
I think we're, I think we might be the largest grower of fruits and vegetables.
I think what we talked about today, it's about people who resonated with these large-scale ideas and then drove change.
in their individual lives.
And I think it's a great movie to watch
with your kids or with your family.
And I think it hits on that point that really,
I think was a key point for me today
and a key point at the White House.
The political process is only good
if it can inspire and open conversations
on individual change, what people are eating,
you know, what people are doing with their kids,
where they're sending them to school, things like that.
And this movie is really about individual empowerment
and I was honored to be a part of it.
And I think storytelling, I mean,
it gets to what we were talking about with Casey. I do think storytelling and continuing to bring
people along on this journey is just so important. Yeah. So breaking big food, this Thanksgiving,
Amazon Prime, and Apple TV, and you can watch it and tag Callie and I as you're eating your
mashed potatoes or whatever. So where can people follow you on social media? I'm at Callie Means
on Instagram and Twitter. If you could offer one remedy to heal a sick culture, physically,
emotionally, or spiritually, what would it be? Well, I've been thinking a lot about Charles.
and how important he was to Maha,
I was so struck at his service
that there was no talk about specific policies
or, you know, this bill should be changed.
It was really about cultural and spiritual revival.
And I saw this, but it was clear at that memorial
that he saw politics as a way, as a platform, really,
to open up a much larger conversation about spirituality and about culture and about family.
I really see the same thing with with with with with with with with with with with with
like the world is not going to change it's not going to be written about in history books you know
what we changed to medicare part d what's happening is a substantiation of a much larger conversation
that I think's really tied to to to what charlie was trying to do and and charlie I think saw the
spiritual nature which almost can't be fully articulated of this maha
issue and of this new political coalition.
So summarized your remedy as well in a succinct way.
I think a lot of the answers to our health crisis and what we're feeling with Maha are in the
Bible. And I think I think Charlie understood that.
What kinds of things did Charlie say to you about Maha behind the scenes when you go on a show?
Charlie was extremely excited about the electoral implications of Maha.
He saw from the first second how new voters could be brought in.
the Republican Party fold.
And I think he mixed the ruthless and clear-eyed political strategy with the mission.
And he realized that in order to get these mission-based things done, which Maha obviously wants to do,
and he was so aligned with, you have to drive votes.
And he saw immediately how this energy on the Maha side could redraw the political map,
which is also really what excited me
and I think it's what's happening.
But that political change is what drives the policy change.
You have to keep those coalitions together.
And by the way, what's really cool is that in that breaking food documentary,
you see scenes of Callie and our friend Vani, the Food Babe,
and Paul Saladino hosting a Maha panel at Turning Points America Fest last year,
which, you know, Charlie obviously greenlit.
So that's pretty cool that Turning Point gets a spotlight in this documentary.
So it's just really special.
You should support it.
You should stream it.
Thank you, Callie, for coming on Culture Apothecary.
Thank you.
I hate having Callie as a guest on this show because I want to talk to him for like eight hours
long and I never have enough time ever.
I think the first time we talked to that episode was like two and a half hours.
This one we had to crunch into an hour because he's a busy guy now working for President
Trump and Bobby.
He's flying all around, had to immediately get on another flight.
So I'm just happy that we got to have an hour with them and have him back since we've
rebranded to Culture Apothecary.
So make sure you leave that five.
our review and support Callie and me and tell people why Culture Apothecary is the best podcast
in health and wellness. I might be a little biased, but also it is. We're on a mission to heal
a sick culture twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays at 6 p.m. Pacific, 9 p.m. Eastern, where new guests
bring a unique remedy to do just that. Subscribe to Real Alex Clark on YouTube. Find me on
Instagram at Real Alex Clark and the show at Culture Apothecary. By the way, thank you so much.
The show just hit over 400,000 followers on Instagram. That's like unheard of for
podcast. So pretty freaking cool. We do share a lot of extra content on there, not just clips of the
episodes. You can find merch for the show at TPSAmerch.com and code Alex Clark will get you 10% off.
My name is Alex Clark and this is Culture Apothecary.
