MAHA rankled by Trump's new order on weed killer: 'Can't imagine a bigger middle finger'
President Donald Trump may have a problem on his hands after spurning his health secretary's Make America Healthy Again movement, according to a report.
On Wednesday night, Trump signed an executive order to boost the domestic production of the weed killer glyphosate, a move that some in the MAHA movement found detestable. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tried to smooth things over between the president and MAHA on Thursday by saying the move would increase U.S. "defense readiness and our food supply."
“We must safeguard America’s national security first, because all of our priorities depend on it," Kennedy said in a statement to CNBC. "When hostile actors control critical inputs, they weaken our security. By expanding domestic production, we close that gap and protect American families.”
Members of Kennedy's MAHA movement sounded off against the move.
Ken Cook, president of the watchdog group Environmental Working Group, told CNBC that he “can’t envision a bigger middle finger to every MAHA mom than this.”
“Elevating glyphosate to a national security priority is the exact opposite of what MAHA voters were promised,” Cook said. “If Secretary Kennedy remains at HHS after this, it will be impossible to argue that his past warnings about glyphosate were anything more than campaign rhetoric designed to win trust — and votes.”
Kelly Ryerson, a prominent MAHA activist known as The Glyphosate Girl, said on social media that she was not pleased with the order.
“Just as the large MAHA base begins to consider what to do at midterms, the President issues an EO to expand domestic glyphosate production,” she said in a post on X. “The very same carcinogenic pesticide that MAHA cares about most.”