MAHA activists warn Trump could lose their support over glyphosate order

By Leah Douglas

WASHINGTON, Feb 20 (Reuters) – Members of the U.S. Make America Healthy Again movement that backs Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. say an executive order this week to boost domestic production of the weedkiller glyphosate risks their support in November’s midterm elections.

Kennedy backers helped elect President Donald Trump in 2024, and he has installed MAHA priorities during his second term, such as reducing the number of recommended childhood vaccines and promoting whole foods in the new dietary guidelines.

The administration drew criticism from MAHA activists last year for removing draft language on pesticides from an August report on children’s health and for the Environmental Protection Agency’s approval of new pesticides. 

On Wednesday, Trump’s executive order invoked the Defense Production Act to ensure the domestic supply of phosphorus and glyphosate, a widely used weedkiller at the center of tens of thousands of lawsuits by plaintiffs claiming it causes cancer.

MAHA activists said they saw Trump’s executive order as a broken promise to their movement, which opposes the widespread use of glyphosate due to health concerns.

“I don’t feel like there’s much hope after this executive order in preserving the MAHA vote,” said Kelly Ryerson, co-executive director of American Regeneration and a critic of glyphosate use.

The order says glyphosate is “crucial to the national security and defense, including food-supply security.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Estimates vary widely on how many voters MAHA includes, but it represented a large part of Kennedy’s support during his aborted presidential campaign.

TRUMP’S ORDER FOLLOWED BAYER 

Trump’s order came after Bayer, the only company that produces glyphosate in the U.S., proposed a $7.25 billion legal settlement this week to address tens of thousands of lawsuits claiming its glyphosate weedkiller Roundup causes cancer. 

The German company said last August that it could be forced to stop U.S. production unless regulatory changes were made to stave off that litigation. The U.S. imports large volumes of glyphosate from China. 

Bayer has maintained that glyphosate is safe for human use. The science on glyphosate’s safety is mixed, with some research showing it can affect the endocrine system or linking it to cancer. 

Dave Murphy, founder and CEO of United We Eat and former finance manager on Kennedy’s presidential campaign, called the executive order a “strategic mistake” that could serve as an election liability. 

“Trump would not be in the White House this second time without those followers, and we expect him to live up to his word,” Murphy said.     

Kennedy, a longtime glyphosate critic who in a 2024 post on X called it “one of the likely culprits in America’s chronic disease epidemic,” said in a statement that the executive order is necessary for national security.

“When hostile actors control critical inputs, they weaken our security,” he said, without specifying to which countries he was referring. “By expanding domestic production, we close that gap and protect American families.”

NOVEMBER ELECTION RISK 

Republicans control the Senate and, more narrowly, the House of Representatives, but every seat in the House and a third in the Senate will be contested in November. 

Trump’s aggressive approach to immigration and voter concerns about persistently high costs already show signs of liability to Republicans in the elections. Sitting presidents have lost House seats in every midterm election since George W. Bush in 2006.

MAHA supporters flooded social media with posts and comments about their disappointment, including images with the text, “we do not consent to being poisoned.”

A petition to Trump being circulated by the MAHA group Moms Across America, whose founder Zen Honeycutt is a longtime Kennedy ally, urges him to rescind the order. 

“True national security is healthy families and the ability of the next generation to reproduce and thrive, which will not happen for as long as these pervasive, harmful herbicides are being used,” the petition said.

(Reporting by Leah Douglas in Washington; editing by Caroline Humer, Rod Nickel)