New Podcast Tracks MAHA Revolution

Few aspects of the Trump administration have brought more changes to the lives of low-income Americans than the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement headed up by Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Food Fix, a newsletter launched by award-winning reporter Helena Bottemiller Evich to be the go-to source for food policy news and analysis recently added a new podcast, Forked, to its editorial menu. Spotlight spoke recently with Bottemiller Evich about the new podcast and her view of MAHA’s impact thus far. The transcript of that conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Congrats on the continued success of Food Fix – tell us about your new podcast.

We just launched with the Food & Environment Reporting Network, which is a great nonprofit that invests in long-form food system reporting. They do everything from waterways and agriculture and pesticides to farm labor, but for this podcast, we’re focusing on food policy and the MAHA era. Given the unique era that we’re in, there’s just no shortage of things to talk about. We’re doing it every two weeks and there’s a lot of focus right now on what the Trump administration will or won’t do on food policy.

We’ve gotten really good feedback on it. I have found that a lot of the podcasts that are in the food space tend to be extremely on team MAHA or they’re extremely anti-MAHA. We’re just analyzing and explaining what’s happening in a smart way, which is a little bit different. And I think more journalists are going to need to look at this format, which I think reaches a different audience.

And how many have you done so far?

I think we’ve done seven. It’s been a lot of fun and we’ve covered everything from SNAP to the implications of the Trump “Big Beautiful Bill.” We also talk about some of the tensions within the MAHA movement, such as between the anti-vaccine people and the food and nutrition people. Some of the anti-vaccine advocates are really angry because they feel like food has become the more prominent issue. I often speculate that it might be because the food stuff polls really, really well and the vaccine stuff doesn’t. The stances on vaccines are shown in polls to be very polarizing, especially on party lines, and even among Republicans it doesn’t necessarily have majority support. But the food stuff like banning synthetic food dyes or even like banning processed foods from school meals has polled really, really well with Republicans and Democrats.

The White House seems to feel that food is a winning issue, but it’s also created this interesting dynamic where this is a deregulatory administration and to make those kinds of changes in the food and nutrition system, you have to use the regulatory process. There’s just a lot of interesting contradictions.

I know you’ve written about that in the newsletter a lot, but I hadn’t thought about it in those terms. The food issue is one of the few things I think this White House has that’s potentially a broadening issue for them, where you can bring in people who are not the true believers.

Yes. And they view it specifically as a way to reach suburban women parents and I think it’s absolutely a real phenomenon—it is absolutely a bigger tent set of issues. My understanding also is there are a fair number of people within Trump world who think RFK Jr. played a really pivotal role in Trump’s November win and that could be another reason why he has this big role in the administration. It’s just an interesting time and there’s a lot of disruption happening. some of it supported by stakeholders and some of it deeply alarming to many people. 

What are you watching most closely for the rest of the year? What about SNAP, though most of those changes don’t go into effect until next year. And is anyone even talking about a Farm Bill?

I think there’s very little chance of a Farm Bill. I think the reconciliation package poisoned the well for Democrats on that. I think the imminent thing on SNAP is actually all of these restrictions, waivers that the states are pursuing.

I guess it’s six states now?

I think it might be up to 10, as the secretary of Agriculture just announced a few more. And this presents a lot of really interesting policy questions, such as does it improve health to restrict candy and soda? What do people replace those things with? That’s all going to be studied now in these states.

And also, the logistics of doing this are substantial. As an example, if you live on the border in northern Florida and you go to Georgia and Georgia doesn’t have restrictions, maybe that’s where you shop. But there’s a lot of questions. If your SNAP is issued by Florida, can you buy sugar drinks in Georgia or not? And then retailers are very against this idea because they don’t want their checkers to have to police what’s in or what’s out.

And anti-hunger advocates are super concerned about this increasing stigma and creating scenarios where families are going to have to put things back while they’re in line or at check-out. Over time, we haven’t really had changes to what’s eligible for SNAP and people pretty much know what you can and can’t buy. And so, I think the SNAP waivers are going to affect a lot of people. It’s probably going to happen in many more states before the Trump administration is done. They’re really in favor of this. And it also doesn’t require regulation.

What are you hearing on WIC?

I’m not up to speed on the latest in Congress, but it’s been an interesting debate in that the White House has proposed cutting the relatively new fruit and vegetable benefit for WIC recipients, which the MAHA report in May actually flagged as an example of a program to increase consumption. The other notable thing with WIC is that it’s a program that’s always stayed out of politics compared to other programs, but that’s really starting to change and that makes everyone really nervous.

We’ve now had more than six months with RFK Jr in charge at HHS. What’s your overall view at this point? Has it been more change and disruption that you expected?

I think the rhetoric coming from Kennedy and others has been much more disruptive than I expected. I thought that they would get in and possibly temper their rhetoric. I have been in the room several times now where Kennedy has said we are being poisoned, that sugar is poisoning us, that ultra-processed foods are poisoning us. And for a high-level government official to use such dark terms, it’s hard to even say that’s a change. It’s just not even in the same universe from anything I’ve covered. I think the rhetoric is very disruptive and stark.

We’ve seen less disruption in actual policy. He’s saying we’re being poisoned by ultra-processed foods, but we don’t yet know what the federal government is supposed to be doing about that. They’re mostly just egging on the states to take these actions, like the SNAP waivers. I do think the cuts in federal funding of research, the grant-making stuff, has been much more disruptive than people thought it would be.

Do you think there’s been more policy follow-through on health than on food and nutrition?

He’s been much more active on the vaccine issues, but as far as I know, vaccines haven’t been pulled from the market or anything like that. But if you just listen to his rhetoric on the healthcare system, they’re essentially calling for completely changing the healthcare system and its incentives. But that is not what we’ve seen them do yet—though we’re only six months in. It’s still pretty early.