It Could Happen Here - Should AOC talk to MAHA?

Episode Date: September 15, 2026

Garrison talks with Dr. Kaveh Hoda about the potential risks and benefits of doing outreach to people within the MAHA movement, the partisan makeup of MAHA, and why AOC is privately talking with MAHA influencers. Sources:https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/28/poll-maha-health-fractures-kennedy-00972253https://www.kff.org/public-opinion/maha-health-concerns-resonate-broadly-but-lag-behind-health-care-costs-even-for-maha-voters/https://www.kff.org/public-opinion/kff-health-tracking-poll-maha-and-the-midterms/ https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2026/09/05/inside-aocs-maha-outreach-01066409https://www.youtube.com/live/h6fe9CaVZCIhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRgeXPsihXISee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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I'm Garrison Davis. I'm joined by Dr. Caffe Oda. Everything is great. You're doing great. I'm doing great. Things are fantastic. Oh, ketamine. It's good to see you again, Kave.

Last time we spoke was on your podcast, House of Pod. Yes, about looks maxing. Yeah, thank you for having me. First of all, it's just nice to see you, and it's nice to see your face, and it's nice to hear your voice. And I know we're going to be talking about some stuff that I actually am very curious to hear your thoughts on.

I exist very much in the doctor, science, public health world online, and I hear a lot of those voices. I have a good sense of the variety of voices coming out of those spaces on the topics we're going to touch on today. But I mean, I really want to hear your thoughts about it. Oh, I want to hear your thoughts on it, not just because you're a doctor, but because you have also done a decent bit of research or have spent some time in the digital maha universe. Yeah, I have. As an outsider. We talked about maha, not too. long ago on your show as well. We kind of talked about some of like the class dynamics of Maha, how how the sort of healthier

lifestyles that some of these influencers push for is unaffordable to a lot of a lot of working class people. Right. And we're going to talk about Maha once again today. And because of how much time you've spent watching those horrible Maha podcasts. Too much. I listen to a lot of RFK Jr.'s podcast. I think it might have hurt my brain.

I think I did things to myself that I have not fully recovered from. But because of your experience, I want to briefly ask you what Maha is? Like, what do you understand Maha being? But like before we talk about this whole idea, which this episode is about, it's in the title, about if you should do outreach to these people, what are the risks of that? What are the benefits of that, potentially? Yeah. Who actually are these people?

Like, what is Maha? That's a really great question. and something I have been trying to figure out myself. I largely, like a lot of people, when I first heard of it, was kind of hoping it would go away. It wasn't. It didn't. And it is a actual factor now that we have to take into account and discuss.

It's real and it's very important. And what I have learned from going into these Maha spaces, which I tragically have done. And also not just Maha spaces, but sort of the Maha adjacent spaces. Yes. Things like the Andrew Huberman podcast and Peter Attia stuff. I've done a lot of work into that for episodes.

And that has given me, I think, a pretty broad sense of what's going on. Now, I think the easy thing for most people, when they hear Maha, they think anti-vaxxer because, you know, RFK Jr. You're anti-vaxxer. That's like the first two associations. Right. But it is important to know that they are not monolithic. There's a lot of variation there. And actually, if you poll them, if you ask them, which I think we're going to get into,

Maha supporters of which there are varieties of from mild to severe supporters, they will actually not say that vaccines are their top issue. Now, I don't believe that. If I'm being totally honest, I just don't believe that. I mean, there are Maha people who vaccines are their top issue. Absolutely. Right. And they are very vocal online.

I think what we'll kind of get to in a bit is that there's other Maha people are people in like, as you say, this kind of Maha extended universe who maybe do not list vaccines as their top issue. Yes. But obviously, this is like culturally like a big part of the Mahal Association. That's right. And when you ask them what is their top priority, the thing that comes up the most is actually the cost of health care.

And then that's sort of followed by other things like, you know, chemicals and foods. Yes. Restricting environmental pollutants, limiting corporate influence in food policy. and limiting, you know, malfeasance by health care institutions and insurance, which, you know, when you say that, it all sounds actually pretty reasonable and pretty, if you take it out of its current context, left-coded. These are all sort of, you know, relatively traditionally left-coded things, yeah. Now, that being said, you know, aside from ushering in the golden age of diarrhea, undermining vaccines. has really been at the core of Kennedy's HHS. And one of the few things he's actually successfully accomplished is dismantling that. And so even I, we're going to talk about it.

And I see the polling that says, no, it's not only about 4% of MAHA really care about vaccines. I've definitely seen other polling, which. Yeah. And I'm just from my personal experience online. Again, and I am an old, as you are very well aware, Garrison. You have helped me out in the ways young people do with old people online. In the ways of looks faxed. Yeah, you help me out a lot of this stuff.

But I have, when I am online or even IRL, as I hear the kids say, if you push them on vaccines, it becomes pretty clear that there are really only very few pro-vaccine Maha folks. And even then, it's usually like, oh, well, the polio vaccine was fine. And they don't even think that's necessary anymore. So Maha's a big, diverse group of people. It is. And the movement itself is really powerful. and has done a lot in two years.

And if nothing else, they have done an amazing thing with their branding and being able to draw in people to this big tent. So that's the best I can do to explain Maha, I think. Yeah. I really understand why this question of, should you do outreach to these people, is so charged because this really is a life and death issue,

like in like a literal sense, right? Right. This sort of like movement that's come up, like up and around are. FK Jr. has caused a lot of deadly harm. Yes. In the world, right? In the name of Make America Healthy again,

RFK Jr. has rolled back childhood vaccine recommendations, has overseen massive budget and staffing cuts at HHS, CDC, and the FDA. The administration has cut snap food stamps, Medicare, Medicaid, and the anti-vax movement more broadly has contributed to measles outbreaks in multiple states, right? This is real harms that have been done in the name of health. Yeah, that's the funniest part about it. That's the great part about all this. And as something that we'll kind of get to in a bit,

any sort of potential outreach, and I'm not recommending my listeners to do this outreach at all. That's not what episode is for. But because all of these things that RFK and Trump has done in the name of health, because of how bad they are, that does also open up a lot of opportunity for people to attack RFK Jr. on this massive level of failure, including failing on a lot of things,

that Maha people largely believe in. And I think something that's really unique and interesting about Maha compared to other aspects of like the Trump world is that like Maha doesn't have the exact same kind of like cult of personality around RFK Jr. The way Maha does around Trump. Yeah.

And Maha is also just not nearly as loyal to like Trump himself. Well, actually, let me ask you that because that is the narrative now is that Maha and Maga are headed for a divorce and that they are diverging. But I don't really see the evidence of that. What you say, I think, is really interesting, though, in that even though

Maha is a pretty popular movement, and we'll talk about the numbers of people that supported, at least in some way, RFK Jr. is not viewed, like, largely by the American population as trustworthy and, like, someone that they rely on. No. Maha is much more popular than RFK Jr. is. Yeah, right. And I think it is really. really important in this discussion to understand that like maha isn't even uniformly

republican right and the movement and its goals are actually much more diffuse according to a political poll from june of 2026 so fairly recently just under one third of u.s adults identify as a part of maha 31 percent and 20 percent of respondents said that they support the movement but don't identify as a part of it so that that's 50 percent of americans who say they at least support the movement, only 30% of which wants to actually openly identify with the movement. And of the people who Politico polled,

20% of those who identified as Maha also voted for Kamala Harris. That's interesting. It's actually more than expected. And 17% of respondents who support the movement but don't identify as a part of it in name also voted for Harris.

And you can compare these results to a poll from the KFF, formerly the Kaiser Family Foundation. Their poll was from May 26. They found that 41% of U.S. adults are Maha supporters, half of which identify as Republicans, 30% independent, and 15% Democrat. There's a lot of interesting things about this polling. One, that it's more common, commonly you'll see online people refer to the four and ten American support maha, but there is a variation of how much support that means. And if you're going to ask somebody, yeah, do you want chemicals in your food? Most people will say, no, not really.

Or they'll say, do you want stricter food monitoring? I mean, most people are going to say yes, unless you're some weird libertarian. That's just like the marketplace of diarrhea will solve those problems. So it's understandable. Again, the branding is really good and it works for a lot of people. It is interesting that so many people who may believe in at least some degree of it don't want to be labeled as Maha. I think they realize how it looks largely. There is a stink to it. Yeah. And there is a very strong kind of anti-science component to Maha like in name proper, most of which, but not exclusively, most of which revolves around vaccines. Yeah. And like you said, there actually is broad support for many components of Maha, things that Maha, you know, influencers talk about

pretty often, regardless of whether people actually identify with or agree with the movement as a There's broad support for improving our diets and increasing fitness, for reducing exposure to harmful chemicals, and limiting the influence of pharmaceutical companies. There is general broad support for all of those issues in this political poll, regardless of whether the respondents were Maha or not. So there is this broad support with the exception for vaccines. And that is where all of these kind of polls and stats take a really big divergence in this political poll. 65% of Maha said that they support reducing how many vaccines Americans receive. Compared to 23% of non-Maha. And those who support the movement but don't identify it in name are kind of in the middle at 45%.

Yeah. So that is like the clearest split in all of this polling. But what's interesting is that this vaccine question also has, in terms of all of the Maha priorities, that people in Maha support themselves, this has the least amount of support among their own movement. This is 65% as opposed to limiting the influence

of pharmaceutical companies, which had 80% support. So that is an interesting peak into the fractures within this Maha brand itself. Yeah, it is. It is interesting as it's becoming bigger

and becoming more like they're trying to codify it a little bit as an organization or as a group, how you're starting to see some of those little cracks form. I mean, getting to the question, which has been coming up about this, does this mean that we should be reaching out to these people? Because there is this variation in beliefs and that we have the opportunity as people who, I don't know, believe in

vaccines to talk to these people and bring them back. Is it politically something that's worthwhile to bring those people into the margins? That last part, I don't know, because I don't really have a great sense of, you know, how politically this group will function in the next coming elections. I don't really know if AOC has to do the outreach that she's been doing and that's been getting a lot of press. I do think the question from just the public health standpoint is a really interesting one. And it's one I'm really grappling with. What do we do? Do we in this country need MAHA? Does public health need MAHA? That's a literal question that has been asked by some very smart public health people online, some of which are, I know very well and have been on the

podcast like Craig Spencer and got a lot of grief for it. It's a tough question. And honestly, I may have a different answer in a month. My belief is we don't need Maha, but we do need the people in Maha to reconsider some of their voting patterns and their vaccine choices. And it's a tough call for me. I'm really of two minds about it. On one hand, I do believe it's important to reach out and convince as many people as we can that Maha is making people less healthy overall. While all the things that have been enacted in the name of Maha, even despite all these things that they seem to be interested in, haven't really done that. Yeah. And then on the other hand, yeah, historically, we've probably done a poor job of explaining the point and the

safety of vaccines. You know, to be fair, it didn't always used to be the issue that it currently is. There's always been this anti-vaccine sense. But public health officials and doctors were not really trained in political persuasion the way a lawyer is. And I understand I might be a little condescending when I say all this stuff. And I don't mean to be, but two things. I refuse to believe that we're in the situation that we're in now because we somehow messed up and we weren't nice enough to like the Jim Carries and the Jenny McCarthy's of the world. And yeah, maybe your doctor was a jerk at some point and made you feel bad about knocking a vaccine. But that's not the reason we have the situation we're in. And even if it was, it doesn't mean that everything that we have to do

in terms of MAHA is changed. Our outreach does not need to change because of that. We should, I do think that. I think we need to be talking about these people. We need to be connecting on the things that we can totally connect on. And these polls show us that there are a lot of varieties of what we can connect with. We can connect with the cost of health care. We could talk about improving public health infrastructure. And we are politicians who are a long lining with these things, they should make it clear that President Trump not only didn't run on it, him and RFK Jr. haven't advanced any credible benefit to lowering health care costs. In fact, the big, beautiful bill is only going to make things worse and going to destroy rural hospitals.

I think there are things in these polls that show us we can address some of those points with people without having to capitulate. And that's key. That is the key aspect. Right. And I know people are worried about that, that this could be like the Trojan horse. If we try to embrace these Maha people, then it'll shift AOC or other politicians or even public health officials sort of to be more open to the anti-vax perspective. I don't think that's the right attitude. I mean, as distasteful as it may be, and again, I'm probably not the right person for this because I don't have the sophistication. But as distasteful as it might be, this movement is just two years old. And it draws some level of support from four and ten Americans. And it's something that we have to take seriously and we have to

try and connect where we can, try to be empathetic when we can, try to understand what we can, but we cannot, and I think this is super duper important, we cannot give an inch on our scientific principles. And I think those two things are manageable. I think we can do those two things at the same time. 100%. And I honestly, I don't see anyone arguing the alternative to that, that we should compromise those things. And the type of outreach the rest of this episode will focus on, and what prompted so much

debate and discussion online last week, has not been based on appealing to or validating pseudo-scientific beliefs or conspiracy theories on vaccines. but rather focused on some of those other Maha priorities that may overlap with some concerns that you, the listener, may have too. And if left-wing politicians actually address those concerns, how that could perhaps undermine the monopoly Maha currently has on those issues in our attention economy. And so next, we will discuss and debate AOC's approach to this outreach and the pros or cons that may have. But first, here's some ads. The music you love.

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this problem because she has seen the same things that I've been kind of talking about and she has decided to act on it. About like a week ago, Politico ran this story about AOC's outreach to Maha, both like, you know, influential figures within the movement, but then also trying to put out content to appeal to Normies who see themselves as Maha. Right. This reporting from Politico seemed to be prompted by an interview on the majority report, left as best, between Emma Vigland and AOC last July, where she talked about environmental policy. AOC had recently been to Tennessee to help campaign for Justin Pearson and she said that people there in Tennessee

are quote unquote pissed off about data centers and she talked about how her constituents in the Bronx are a less ideologically driven electorate they're very working class and racially diverse but they might not have all the same concerns as a tree-hugging activist and so when she was first elected she did a quote unquote deep canvas of the community

to learn how to talk about climate issues in a way that isn't just academic and theoretical, that actually points to day-to-day issues in people's lives. So eight years ago, it was me doing teachings in public housing, saying the lead in our water, the sky-high asthma rates that we deal with, that is environmental. And this is directly contributed to, with the gas infrastructure that we have in our public housing that is leaching into our air and all of the other environmental issues that are going on.

And so with the data center fight, I think that this is, it's the similar analog. People are seeing how all of this is wrecking their health, wrecking their communities. And it makes environmental issues not academic, but very real in people's everyday lives. She later said, quote, we always have to be making three arguments at the same time for any issue, a moral argument, an economic argument, and also a political argument. And when we're able to argue for something in a chorus of all those three, then we're able to build a majoritarian coalition to actually win on them, unquote. This is something she's been, she's been animate about for the past

like two years, is building these sorts of majoritarian coalitions to actually win the things we believe in, not just endlessly scream about them online. Yeah, one thing in there that I think is really astute is, and this goes for us in public health as well, is that we need to show people that we are fighting for them, even for the people in the Maha movement. Because we do, still no matter what, they are our responsibility to take care of, and their public health is also our responsibility. But something in there that's interesting is we have to also show them that we're not

just fighting to preserve our precious institutions. It's not just that we're fighting for the CDC and FDA to retain some sense of normalcy, which, you know, we are. But we need to show them that we're fighting for them. And I think that's a really important thing that if she can do that, I honestly don't follow her career well enough to know her as a politician, but she seems very smart and very savvy, so I don't see why she couldn't. I feel like that is not, that's a really reasonable approach, I think, to doing this, is to try to connect with them on those levels. And one thing she's she's talked about trying to appeal to Maha supporters through is not by, you know, capitulating to their crazy stuff, but by pointing out to them how the administration has completely turned their back on a whole bunch of like very base, like popular policies that Maha also supports. Yeah.

I mean, but here, okay, here's also where I get cynical because there's a part of me that sort of like, yes, we need to be doing. this and we absolutely need to be showing people that not only are other people that you're not voting for, apparently, fighting for these exact principles you care about, but the people that you're now aligned with are actively doing things to dismantle the regulations that are the things you care about. And there's a part of me that's just like, why, how can you not know already? And that's, that is something I have to deal with. I have to sort of get past because we have to. I mean, we just sort of have to get grow past that point. But I also don't see how it's not apparently obvious to everyone at this point that these people are doing all the things you don't want.

You think the environment has gotten any better? Do you think that there's been any meaningful, like, food safety or improvements? Yeah, a couple of red dyes. Now you can get like very pale Cheetos. But like people have to see past that, I think. And I don't think they are. I think in order to see past it, they have to be presented with. that argument. Yes. And if no one in their media orbit is doing that, or if they don't,

if they don't, if they feel like anyone who would make that argument is like, you know, actually against them is, is, is hostile, then they're not going to listen to that person. And I think that's the needle that she's trying to thread. And something she's talked about specifically in this majority report interview is that if, if adems end up taking back the house in the midterms, they have to go after, quote, not just corruption generally, but corruption in the ways that undermine their base. Right. And a, and a, and a, and a, big factor that contributed to Trump's win in 2024, which was a blind spot to the Democrats and the media analyzing the election results, was the Maha movement.

I actually think a lot of it was Maha. I think that there was very little political analysis done on how they really focused on women, on moms, on radicalizing and doing a lot of persuasion in an electorate that was much more swinging than, you know, to be frank, white male voters. Those are generally broken more strongly towards Republicans. But they really focused a lot on women. And they have had probably the biggest betrayals with the glyphosate rulings, with their complete throwing in with big ag, and Monsanto and Bayer, including coordinating with the Supreme Court and all of that. And so I think their political vulnerabilities are in, we want to focus on corruption in the

ways that undermine their promises. And we want to go after investigations that cut off the supply of their illicit money flows. Adding on to that, like the food safety cuts at the FDA, right, leading to this Massive food safety crisis that people in like half the country are dealing with. Yeah. It's a very easy thing to point to. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, I think that's, it's great. We should, you're right. You're right. It is easy these days to be in a echo chamber where all the people who are getting this mom information are getting it solely from like wellness influencers on Instagram or TikTok. They're solely getting it from like their news station that they listen to Fox or One News or wherever they're getting that stuff from. I think it's great.

And I do appreciate when someone tries to get out into that, break through that bubble. I actually did watch a clip of Fox talking about AOC in this interview and the outreach. And there is a little truth to it. You can kind of tell that they are taking it seriously because I think they know on some level that it is a smart strategy. Yeah. These are like easy touch points.

I will say, though, I do see a little dangerous. in it, and again, this doesn't mean we shouldn't do it, but we have to discuss it. And there is a little bit of real danger to doing this. And you're right, very few people are saying, hey, we need to capitulate totally on science. But it doesn't require that much. What I see, what really bothers me is that we just aren't fighting and pushing back on all this COVID revisionism that's been happening. And it's because it's easier. But like, that's part of what I think we need to be doing is while we are making these outroads, while someone like AOC is focusing on those exact issues, cost of health care, they also need to be very clear that the science and the vaccines

works and it's sound. And this COVID revisionism is hard because I think a lot of people, doctors, I'm talking about public health professionals, they just don't push back on it because it's too hard to do. The people that have come out with like, oh, see, was all, we were all lied to, Fauci lied to us, it's all lies. And it's just this, sure, this narrative that is so strong out there that people just kind of step away from it. And now they're like, sort of, hey, well, let's focus on things we can focus on. I say, no, let's do that, but let's also be very clear that those were not all problems. Sure, there wasn't completely perfect, you know, practice with Fauci and with rolling out of vaccines and talking about mass mistakes

were made as oftentimes there is in a novel, disease crisis. People were moving as fast as they could with what information they could and things weren't perfect. But there is this real asymmetry to what people will tolerate with Maha versus what they tolerate from someone like Fauci. Like Maha makes mistakes all the time, prove it wrong all the time and people forgive them because, oh, they take big swings. They're at least trying to help the American healthcare system. But then if Fauci like made a mistake talking about masks, then, you know, he is the literal devil. You know, so it. There is this asymmetry.

We have to be very vocal about that. We have to push back on COVID revisionism the same exact time we are doing this outreach. And I think that I think it's great. Agreed. There are young people in politics like Mamdani and what I see with her that are getting really good about staying on target with the messaging. I think that is. Message discipline. Yeah.

Message discipline. Yeah. I think we're seeing more of it these days, which is nice. I agree. I agree with everything you say there. And I think that all has to be done, like, in conjunction with addressing the base problems that cause people to be compelled by the crazier parts of Maha in the first place. Right. And this is something that Vigland and AOC talked about, how, like, Maha charlatans have been able to, like, tap into some issues and then manipulate people based on their, like, anxieties around our totally broken healthcare system, right? They're able to tap into this. notion that everyone has that we're all being fucked over and our health care system is broken. And so if it's broken, maybe I'll look for solutions outside the healthcare system. Maybe I'll listen to what people outside of this industry are saying.

And that can lead you down some very dangerous roads, as we've been talking about. And this part specifically is why AOC mentioned that she's actually been meeting with some Maha advocates and activists. It's to understand the issues that they're tapping into. And this is like the clip that has, you know, sparked this whole discourse. And I'll play it here for you in case you haven't actually heard the whole thing. A lot of them really don't believe that their fight is partisan. And it's not in many ways.

We do have extraordinary corruption in our agricultural system, in our big corporate system as well. you know, and this is an area where both parties in our entire political system has been compromised. Like one of the first things I did was be part, when I first got to the house, was be part of these congressional investigations on PFAS dumping. Right. And you have companies like 3M and others that, you know, and this goes back decades where you have a big company that is doing manufacturing of some kind. and they just dump whatever cancerous byproduct that they have

in poison communities around them. And then they just pay off our political class to ignore it and to let it continue to happen or to shield them legally, like with glyphosate, from everyday people trying to get that back. So, like, that's an example of one of these, like, very real issues that then has been used to, like, you know, on-ramp people into these much more, like, cultic milieu,

kind of, like, dangerous information spaces. Yeah. But it is based on like a real material issue. You know, same thing with like cost of health care, right? If you if you look at that KFF poll that like breaks down, you know, what does Maha people, whether they're Republican or Democrats, where do they rank as they're not top issue? Among Republican Maha voters, the most frequently cited top issue was lowering the cost of health care, including prescription drugs. Yeah. The second top issue for, again, Republicans, not just Democrats, but for Republican Maha voters was restricting the use of certain. chemical additives in the food supply. Right. I mean, the PFAS thing is a very interesting discussion, these forever chemicals. I've actually done two episodes on it with authors of these really well-researched books on the matter. And I still left that with more questions than I had answers. And that requires a bit of a nuanced conversation on what the real risks are to the general population. But I will say this, the more you learn about those companies, 3M, and she didn't mention it, but DuPont is the other big one.

There's a number of them. The more you learn about them, the more you just realize the real villain is... I mean, if anything was going to radicalize me, it's that sort of stuff. You learn about these corporations. They're truly awful.

Yeah. Truly awful. As a quick aside, you've got to watch the show The Boys. I love it so much. And the major reason is, it's like a superhero movie. It's a superhero show.

But really, the villains are the corporations. And that's really, I think more Americans should watch that show. I think it's super important. Anyways, so you will learn about those things, but you learn about the people behind those companies, and it's not the people that Maha is fighting against right now. It's the people that currently aligned with are the people that are behind these corporations. That's the part that gets me. And I don't know how to educate them, but that is going to be the important thing.

If that, the cost of health care and those regulations are important to them, then I think we need to hammer that as much as possible. And get on those points. And people like, I hate to say this, but people like me and other healthcare peoples, we need to get into those spaces to have those conversations. But we're also not trained to do so because we don't have like, if I go on like a talk show

with RFK Jr. and he gish gallops me, I'm going to get pissed and I'm going to like say something mean about his voice. And then I'll feel like a jerk. Like, you know, like, we're not trained. Totally. And, like, to be completely clear, when I ask, should we do outreach, I'm using we in this royal we sense. I am not proposing that you or any of the listeners actually need to go out and do this stuff

yourself. And I'm certainly not proposing that guesting on maha podcasts or debating on Jubilee to find your common ground is the way that we should. should do outreach at all. Public outreach can be done completely on your own terms, either through your own social media accounts or your own health podcast where you can talk about these issues that Maha adjacent people claim to care about, but in an actually scientifically backed way. According to KFF, more Maha voters say that health care costs and food safety will have a major impact on their vote than vaccine policy, which is, I think, not something your average blue sky

user would be aware of. Like, I, I, I, there is this sort of like idea of like the average Maha person who's this like, you know, eugenics crazed anti-vaxxer. And some of them are that, yes. Yeah. But there's also a lot of like normie moms who, for whatever reason, have had a bad experience with the, with the medical system. or maybe they have too much time on their hands

and they're going into crazy, you know, internet rabbit holes. Both are things that happen. But there is a lot of like kind of normal moms who will fall into this stuff because they do care about their children's health and they feel like the world that their kids are being raised in is not one that's actually set up to prioritize the health of their kids. And without people, including, you know, politicians, speaking to that, you know, accurately and like backed by real science,

it opens the door to people who will speak to them about these concerns, but without that scientific background. And it can funnel them into these places that are not actually going to benefit the health of anyone as we've, as we're now living in the national consequence of. You're absolutely right. And I recognize that. And it is something that I think is important. And that's, you know, a big part of why I, a simple country doctor decided to become, you know, active online and have a podcast and do this sort of because I felt it was a good way to fight misinformation. and to connect with people. And it is very important that we do that.

I do think that's absolutely sure. It's absolutely true. I mean, it is hard. It's a challenge. It's a real challenge. But we all can find our own ways to do it. And God, I really, I hope that these outreaches have some benefits, some positive benefit. I become a little bit, and this is not mean by my nature.

I'm an optimist, but I become a little bit pessimistic about the, the ability to win back some of these people with at least the current democratic leadership. Oh, I mean, certainly, yes. I'm much more hopeful that with the younger people that are much more savvy or net savvy and know how to speak to people, I'm much more hopeful that they will be able to connect broadly on some major level in a way that, you know, Chuck Schumer never could or care to. I should also say something else. I also recognize fully that there are real problems with our health care system.

I am not here to say that like, hey, our medical health care system is awesome this country. Why would people be dissatisfied? No, people, you're totally right. There is real dissatisfaction with our health care, the cost of it, the delivery of it, the access of it. All these things are real. And there are issues that, you know, we have to show people that we're championing or we're trying to champion. because there are real problems, and that's why it's working. People are easy.

I mean, you're right. There's some degree of just bored people, like, getting down internet, like, conspiracy theories about this stuff. But there's real issues that are plaguing our public health care that we need to address. And we need to show that we are not. I mean, it's so funny, like, I get accused of being like a pharma shill all the time because I'm, like, for vaccines. And I'm like, I hate pharma companies more than you. I guarantee it. And I have good reason to.

Because I see what they do to patients. And I see what they do to the cost of health care. So we have to show people that we are on their side. And this is the right place to start. Yeah. Absolutely. And that's also something AOC talked about on the majority report as a reason why people are getting pulled into Maha. My mom's side of the family is evangelical.

Right. And I see how all of these issues that have been at their surface level, expressed as right wing are actually very much just the anxieties that we have as working people not being able to afford health care. And so it's also like, how do I stop being sick? How do I prevent being sick by limiting my exposure to things that I think are toxic? Yep. And then, which there are things that are actually toxic and things that aren't actually toxic that get taken advantage of. And then also, when I do get sick and I can't afford medicine, what are the holistic and low-cost

alternatives that I can turn to because I know that I can't afford to see a doctor? So yeah, those were AOC's comments on the majority report, which then served as the basis for a political piece earlier this month, digging into her quote-unquote Maha outreach, and the varieties of issues that she was discussing with Maha advocates. This newsletter also clarified the sequence of events in terms of why she started this outreach when she did. Yeah. And she started this effort last spring ahead of some hearings

with the EPA head Lee Zeldin. And the political reporting does know that AOC, quote, still has significant differences with the broader Maha move including its vaccine skepticism, but she sees overlap on things like pesticides, corporate power, and access to safe food,

according to a person close to AOC, unquote. So in spring, her office began specifically working around the issue of glyphosate and pesticides and ended up contacting some Maha organizations who together helped FOIA some emails and correspondence

which then influenced how AOC addressed and questioned EPA administrator Lee Zeldin. And this produced a lot of viral clips. In fact, tens of thousands of lawsuits in the United States, many issued by farmers with high exposure, have been filed against Bayer for failing to warn them about the cancer risk of exposure. Now, interestingly, Administrator Zeldin, on February 18th, of this year, President Trump released an executive order to increase the production of glyphosate in the United States, correct?

Yes. And not only did that executive order call to increase the production of glyphosate, it also called for legal immunity for bear from the tens of thousands of Americans who are seeking justice in court for their toxic exposure. So a lot of people in the Maha world saw clips from this hearing and found them compelling and then thought maybe AOC isn't all that bad. Maybe I could listen to some of the stuff that she's talking about. I think that is the crux of why she is doing this. Yeah.

She can address some of these issues around glyphosate, around, you know, specifically these internal EPA emails showing that the pharmaceutical company buyer was in communication with the. EPA about the then upcoming Supreme Court case regarding the carcinogenic weed killer Roundup. And that Bayer sought information regarding EPA's regulatory review of Roundup. And to quote this internal email, quote, buyer will provide a small thanks for updating the glycophate web page from the EPA and work on maha, unquote. Insane, an insane thing.

This glyphosate update that they were. referring to, seems to be correlated to the EPA agency withdrawing its support for California's cancer warning on glyphosate. Now, this is important because five days after the EPO this year, Bayer filed their opening brief to the Supreme Court, citing the Trump's executive order and hinging their case on the EPA's warnings or lack thereof of glyphosate. So we have internal emails from your agency saying that Bayer wanted to thank you. you and your agency for removing support for California's warning because their case before the Supreme Court right now hinges on you not warning the American people and withdrawing your support

on glyphosate. Do you understand the conflict of interest that is before the American people right now, Mr. Secretary? I understand. The gentlelady's time has it. You might have a response. Thank you. So after this sort of viral moment, a few other people in the moment, the most of the AHA world started to get into communication with AOC to address issues around pesticides and

chemicals, which someone close to this situation told Politico were of the issues that, quote, the traditional left has cared about for decades, unquote. Well, me, for your listeners also, I should probably mention so in case I'm wondering, glyphosate is the weed killer in Roundup, and there is this big question about whether or not it can cause cancer. And this is something that I'm glad that she's addressing this. I think this is low-hanging fruit, and she should. And this is the kind of thing we can all agree on.

Like, if there's a chance of it, why not try to get rid of it? But it also, I think we should be careful. Because these can be just like PFAS, these gateways to greater conspiracy theories. And we should be careful about what we do and do not know. We should say that, like, the honest answer is, you know, we don't know how much of a risk it is for cancer. Probably a very small risk for people who use it rarely. and then a more moderate risk of developing non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, which is the thing that seems to be connected to it.

And people who use it a lot. So, yeah, it's bad. You know, if there's any way we can make sure it's not around and we need to follow it and find out how it slipped through the cracks of testing. And those are all questions that we need to address. But I also would say let's also caution making that our new boogeyman. I would love for the people in charge to be adults about the stuff and to talk about these things like what we do actually know and don't know and not to score points based on just the fact that we want it gone. We should.

It should be gone. But I mean, like it's again, it's one of these like we have a lot of fish to fry. And if this is what it takes to get Maha thinking that she's cool, great. But I also have much bigger health related issues that I. I would love for her to be focused on. Yeah, it's like kind of one kernel at a time. I mean, this became an issue because of Trump's executive orders trying to give companies, you know, complete immunity for any possible health risks as a result of people using these products.

And so, you know, a part of politics is both being proactive, but then it's also responding to things happening in the world. And this Supreme Court case was one such instance. I'm just saying it's good to score. some easy points. These are layups talking about stuff like this. We should take care of it. But I also don't want it to stop there.

Sure. I don't want this to be like with the limit of where our public health discussion ends, you know? The music you love. Your favorite radio stations. Everywhere you go. The podcasts, everyone's talking about. All in one place. And it's free.

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something else we learned in this Politico newsletter is exactly who some of these maha advocates are that AOC has been meeting with. According to Politico in late July, AOC met with Zen Honeycott of Moms Across America, Joe Maxwell of Farm Action, and government consultant Emily Steinbridge. Moms Across America is a very influential kind of maha adjacent organization, especially on Facebook. The main four petitions hosted on the Moms Across America website currently relate to data centers, glyphosate, and pesticide manufacturers. There's also pages on independent food testing, talks screenings. A whole section of the website is actually on data centers, but there are also web pages on things like genetically engineered food, EMF wireless

radiation and a page promoting vaccine skepticism. The founder, Zen Honeycott, believes that autism can be partially caused by childhood vaccines and claims that an organic diet helped her son's autism symptoms. Honeycott told Politico that her meeting with AOC was a quote-unquote thorough conversation, touching on pesticides, PFAS, and environmental health. She's quoted in the newsletter saying, quote, I don't agree with socialism, and most moms across America also don't. But we do believe in corporate responsibility.

Even if someone isn't a socialism or a conservative, I think we should agree that everyone should have access to non-toxic food, unquote. There has also been some recognition among certain Maha figures that a connection with AOC could hurt their own access to the Trump administration. Vanie Hary, the food babe influencer, had quote-unquote trepidations about meeting with AOC because she, quote, wants access to the administration still, according to someone familiar with the matter. Considering the variety of beliefs, many harmful that some of these Maha influencers have, I do want to mention a variety of the risks of talking to these people. And again, to reiterate, I am not arguing that you, the listener, do this. I'm not calling on you to debate your unpleasant family member about vaccines at Thanksgiving. I'm not saying that you have to go on Maha podcasts to argue these things, but there are people in positions of power whose job it is to navigate politics in this way. And there are some real risks from doing that.

the main one being capitulating on your values and beliefs for political benefit, right? Compromising with people, compromising with, in some cases, like, you know, eugenicists in in Maha in hopes of winning some votes. And I don't believe that's what AOC is doing. But for people who are extremely skeptical of like AOC's political motivations, I can see how that would be a concern. Yeah. Another risk factor is that in your communications with these people, you end up platforming

platforming people with genuinely harmful beliefs, stuff that causes active harm to the public health through kids not being vaccinated. And by extension, if you end up promoting some of the justifications for those anti-fax beliefs, which are very dehumanizing against people with autism, sometimes with this like soft eugenics component, right? That is a real, you know, possible danger

of talking with influential people in this world. There's also this factor that, just by talking with them, you might end up like legitimizing some of their crazy beliefs, right? This is an idea that people have. Right. My counter to that is that they don't need to be further legitimized. Donald Trump is the president, the Republicans control the whole of the federal government. RFK Jr. runs HHS.

They have received institutional legitimation like already. Yeah. Right. You're right. It's not about you can't platform these people. these people are the platform at this point. And AOC's not platforming these people. She isn't telling her followers or supporters to seek out these Maha activists.

She isn't live streaming with them. She's doing outreach in private to pull people from their side, maybe back towards reality. And I think it's working. I think it's actually working for her at least. I mean, assuming that this is going to be for a potential presidential run or at least for some sort of political maneuver. for whatever reason she's doing it, I think as long as she's able to collaborate with clear boundaries, addressing the legitimate concerns like the PFAS, pesticide exposures, cost of healthcare, while really clearly addressing the scientifically unsupported claims, like these

chronic disease things, the soft eugenics, the vaccine narratives, I think that's important. But what's important to me, though, those have to be vocally addressed because, like I was saying before, with all these people that have been pushing these COVID revisionist thoughts, like just letting those people say those things without responding, it does build this narrative overall that COVID vaccines were a mistake and that they're dangerous, et cetera. We have to not just, you know, focus on things that we agree on, but she has to clearly set boundaries and say that the things we did were really good. The one good thing that Trump ever is connected to, really in my perspective is Operation Warpspeed.

The worst... Operation Warp Speed. The worst name for a vaccine project that you could have made. But still, you know, that's like the... That we have to be really clear about those two things. And I think if she can do that, that's great. And people should take the lead. And I'm going to get hurt for saying some of this,

because I know a lot of my, you know, doctor friends, public health friends who have a much different perspective about Maha and don't feel there's really any benefit to talking with them for all the reasons that you mentioned. Maybe I'll get there. I'm not there right now. I'm just not. I feel like we need to be able to connect.

Yeah, I would like to kind of touch on that for a sec because there is this idea that you can maybe ignore the problem away. Right. That instead of trying to talk these people, we just want them to go away. So you should not acknowledge them. You should not, you should just pretend they aren't there until they go away. Yeah.

How well has that strategy worked for us thus far? Has it worked that well? Has it worked that well? It hasn't. And to me, this idea that you can just not acknowledge this whole problem is just like a rejection of politics to me. Like that is just rejecting what politics is. And again, I'm not saying that you have to do this. But to say that our solution is going to be just making fun of them until they go away,

to me that feels like a kind of liberal bourgeois position from someone with enough privilege to just reject real politics through pretending that a very big group of people simply do not exist. Yeah. And I don't think that's how we're going to get ourselves out of this problem.

And when I said this online, someone said, well, yeah, but I mean, if you're going to talk about real politics, real politics is when I asked my dad to see a doctor about his stomach, problems and he said he's not going to and he's just going to use cod liver oil. Yeah, the one trick that I don't want you to know, I personally don't want you to know

that, folks. You're going to put me out of business. And like, that's a huge problem. Like, that is a huge problem that someone's dad said that. But that problem won't be solved by ignoring the problem. Correct. Right? This is the end point of what we're trying to do is reach people who have this reaction. And that's going to that's going to require massive health care reforms and building public trust in state capacity and in our ability to actually help people.

And this is going to be a long-term project. I'm not saying this is going to be fixed by 2028. But towards the end of this political article, there's a really interesting quote. Quote, AOC's outreach comes in a moment when the Maha vote itself appears to be up for grabs ahead of the 28 presidential election amid ongoing frustrations with the Trump administration. Alex Clark, a turning point USA personality, and the host of the Health and Wellness podcast, Culture Apothecary, told Politico she's, quote,

certainly concerned about the possibility of the influential block of voters slipping away. Clark said she's already seeing interest in AOC among her own viewers, after AOC began publicly talking about pesticides. Clark said audience members sent her clips with reactions along the lines of, Wow, this is crazy. Agree with AOC? to quote Clark, Mahaw voters are not Republican.

They're so focused on health issues, they don't care who it is that's saying they're going to get it done, unquote. And this sort of movement points to why I think it might be a good idea for someone like AOC to talk to some of these people and disrupt the pipeline

from the alternative health industry. Give them an offer. Give them an offer. Because the alternative is that they're just going to get even more insular into this world of conspiracism and eventually like eugenic style fascism. So for someone who's doing outreach, you have to, you have to first like figure out what the variety of concerns are that are held by these big groups, right? Where do these concerns come from?

And if there's any overlap between some of the material concerns that they actually have, with, you know, scientifically based environmental issues or left-wing critiques of corporate interests. And this might lead someone to kind of question, okay, but then why? Why would you do outreach to influencers and leaders of Maha rather than just regular Normie Moms? Well, AOC is also doing that through her own, you know, social media channels. But how do you think she can reach Normie Moms in the first place who are very bubbled, right? Who are in their own information silos. Right.

It is through, you know, talking with some of these movement leaders in private that can help you learn about their political operation, about how their ideas are disseminated, what their leaders believe, what their followers believe, the range of their politics and like what's exactly being sold. And also you can learn things that they might only say in private. All of that information can help inform how to target regular people, which AOC does from time to time on Instagram, and also through, you know, visits to data centers which get picked up on local news coverage. Yeah. And like these MHA influencers command very large audiences that ordinarily would not be exposed to the substance of what AOC's politics actually are, but now they might be.

And if AOC can position herself as a figure that someone in the Maha world can go to for takes outside their regular bubble, ideally over time she might be able to off-road them away from the crazy stuff towards health policies that actually make us healthier. And I think there really is value in attempting to pull these followers

away from the Maha side and educate them on real harms being perpetuated by profit-seeking industries. And part of a politician's job is learning how to talk to people, right? Talking to these politically lost parents who have concerns about the health of their kids might mean different things

than talking to like a leftist, right? AOC has to learn, or anyone, has to learn how to talk to different types of people. Yeah. And building a base that's like capable, you know, a coalition, a majoritarian coalition that's capable of challenging capital, challenging these big corporations,

will mean talking to people that you disagree with or might even have some harmful beliefs. This happens like in unions all the time, right? There's people in working class unions who might believe some things that are bad. But if you're going to build like worker power, you're going to have to talk with them.

And maybe then through the process of building solidarity, you can address some of those harmful beliefs that they have. Once you have that solidarity kind of built, once you realize you actually do have shared interests. And these sorts of harmful beliefs are actually working. against those shared interests. Agreed. We need a bigger tent. I mean, people who want to make these fights that we need as big a tent as we can. I agree with that. This is the same thing with the data center battle, right? Yeah. Like that has a lot of conservatives supporting it. Right, right, right. Yeah.

And it's a very interesting topic to bring up along with the same thing. You know, with the same people whose perspectives on this, how aligns with Maha and how that aligns with the greater Maga picture is really interesting. And you're exactly right. It's about listening. about being empathetic for what it's worth. There are studies that show if you want to change public opinion on health care and the health care infrastructure. That's what is required. And what does seem to work is, you know, listening, showing empathy.

It is difficult to scale is really the issue, you know, that that's a kind of thing that is a challenge to scale. But it is exactly what you're talking about. It's coalition building whenever you can. And we're at a crisis moment where I think that's necessary. And when we talk about, I talk about it. I talk about, you know, building a bigger tent. For me, that means we're bringing in these people,

but it doesn't mean abandoning the other things. The same way... Our tent does have rules. Our tent has rules for its continued operation. Right. And if you're going to come in here and start assaulting people in our tent. If you're going to start, you know, hitting down the stick... Throwing trans kids under the bus for it.

Yeah, then our tent should not be for those people. I agree. No. But there is legitimate problems. that if the left doesn't address in, you know, actually substantive ways, which the right can never do, because the right's whole ideology is very contradictory. They have these kind of populist maha things that they can never actually fulfill, as you see with the Trump administration. But there is some legitimate issues or anxieties that motivate issues, both legitimate and not. And if the left doesn't address those, then we give the opening to the right to sell crazy bullshit.

And that is the thing that needs to be disrupted. To kind of show my cards at the end here, the reason why I kind of care about this is because I grew up with like a crunchy mom. I'll use that kind of terminology. And I have seen her shift politically to the left over the years, right? Like if Maha was a thing 20 years ago, she would have been like a Maha person. It's all the same types of stuff around like some legitimate issues. some kind of borderline issues, like, is organic food necessarily better than non-organic tomato?

Maybe, maybe not. And then also vaccine hesitancy. That was a big thing in my family. And I saw my mom change her opinions as I grew up. And for me, it can be really sad to see so many people assume that, like, large swaths of just regular people must like have to be, these completely unreachable lunatics. Yeah. Not all maha sympathetic people are crazy anti-vaxters,

but there are some. There are some. And even those people, I think are still people that should be reached. I'm not saying that you have to do that. I'm not saying that AOC doing a congressional hearing is going to do that immediately. Yeah.

But when you start writing off so many people as just like beyond saving, then again, you have kind of given up on politics. Yeah. We are still responsible for those people. Yeah. We are still responsible for those people's public health. Even the people who don't believe in vaccines, I feel responsible for their health. So it's really well said. And it gives you an interesting perspective on it. And it's good. And I think if most of us are, you know, really think about it, we probably have someone in our lives like that as well. A lot of your listeners probably are people who grew up with parents who have pretty different ideas. Some of them probably haven't shifted that much, but a lot of them probably have. There's someone in your your life that probably has shifted over time. I think I think it's important that we keep trying to. I mean, these are people that we have to to some degree. I think the bottom line is we have to keep communicating with Maha and we have to show that we're listening. And it doesn't matter how much we know if it doesn't show that we care. And that's super cheesy, but it is true. And I think

that's at the core of what AOC is doing. And again, I don't know her politics that well. I'm follow to that closely, but she seems pretty savvy. And I feel like that empathy thing she nails. And I think that's great. And I think that's probably something more of us need to do. More politicians should be doing. The empathy aspect is really important. And of course, something that just doesn't get encouraged on social media because of the way those platforms are structured and the way the algorithms work. But in trying to answer this question of should we, the Royal We, do outreach to Maha people. I think we first really need to ask ourselves,

do we actually want to understand this problem? Or do we just want to feel superior to anti-vaxxers? Because if we just want to feel better than other people, then yeah, ignoring the issue and just making fun of these people online, that's enough to fulfill your goal. But if your goal is to actually address these problems and their root causes, you're going to actually have to try to understand the diffuse the nature of Maha, the variety of issues it tries to address, and the anxieties it feeds on. Because if you don't, your understanding

of the people in Maha will not just be incomplete, but politically useless. A lot of regular people in the world don't vote or shape their beliefs based on deeply held ideological or partisan conviction, but through trying to respond to the material conditions in their lives. Now, sometimes that means they may get tricked by a con man, and it's really easy to just laugh and shame those people as gullible fools. But like, how is that useful? Or is it just a way to make yourself feel superior amidst a public crisis? It's worth remembering that one out of ten Mamdani voters voted for Trump in 2024. and Mamdani started his campaign by talking with Trump voters in the Bronx on Fordham Road.

That was like his first campaign video in November of 2024 after the presidential election. Rebuilding faith in public health will take a long time. Oh, boy. I think passing universal health care would be a huge step towards that. Having people occupying the government that is actually transparent, doesn't just lie about being transparent, will be steps towards that goal. And I guess I hope to see that goal one day, even if it is not right now.

But do you know what you can do right now is listen to House of Pod if you want some real information about public health? You sure can. As soon as you're done listening to this, and I mean including the ads that come at the end of this podcast, once you're done listening to all of those,

then go listen to my podcast, The House of Pod, where we talk about a lot of these same issues I bring on experts from all kinds of different fields because I don't know everything about medicine, although I am pretty smart. I don't know everything. So I bring on people smarter than me whenever I can. And we'll cover things from wellness grifters, Dr. Oz, Peter Attia, more obscure people that you probably haven't heard of to what RFK Jr. is currently doing to our healthcare infrastructure.

And it's a pretty fun show. It's not too science-y. So I think if you like this podcast, it's a very good job. chance you're going to like the House of Pod. Also, if I may plug, I have a new podcast coming out that I'm very excited about. It's a little different. It is called Persian of interest. It's going to be a Persian history podcast. To take a look at stories of Persian contributions to the arts, to music, to philosophy. I'm going to look at stories that Persians have largely been written out of or minimized in where the role is more prominent. And I think it's going to be a lot of fun. So

stay tuned for Persian of interest as well, which should be coming out at the end of this month. Thank you so much for coming on and talking about a very, very challenging topic for, geez, an hour. Bring me back in like a month and let me see if I'm still feeling as open to talking to Maha.

We'll do. Thank you. It could happen here is a production of CoolZone Media. For more podcasts from Coolzone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for it could happen here listed directly in episode descriptions.

Thanks for listening. Didn't catch the latest Roland Martin unfiltered podcast? Here's what you missed. People wake up and go, oh damn, wait a hold up. They change all of that? Yes. It's real. This is a wholesale attack.

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Human.