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From The Times and The Sunday Times, this is the story. I'm Luke Jones. We're gonna make America great again. Make America great again. Make America great again. Make America great again. Make America great again. You know the words to that tune, but how about this one? Do you want a president who's gonna make America healthy again?
After long being a thorn in Donald Trump's side as a very popular independent candidate in the presidential election last year, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has now fully embraced the MAGA movement, somewhat refashioning it as the MAHA movement.
President Trump's most controversial cabinet nominees are expected to face tense confirmation hearings. A jam-packed week here on Capitol Hill of what are expected to be tense confirmation hearings for three of Donald Trump's most controversial hand-picked nominees, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
When he tapped up RFK Jr, political scion turned conspiracy theorist as health secretary, there were audible gasps in some circles. This, after all, was the man who accused the Food and Drug Administration of waging a war on public health and called the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention a fascist enterprise. But there was one corner of the internet where the announcement inspired quite a different reaction.
Make America great and healthy again. Oh my god. Guys, it's happening. Someone finally in the political arena standing up for our children for once. To concerned mum-fluencers, that is mum-influencers across America, RFK Junior is a hero with the courage to take on big farmer, big food and big ag.
I feel like I haven't ever heard anyone in politics talk about the issues with our food and our water. Why are you so worried about if I give my kids something that has produced instead of a petroleum derived ingredient?
So how much of the Maha movement is sense, and how much is nonsense? And is the swell of support from social media mums, and a for RFK Junior to actually topple powerful corporations, decades of American norms, and a president, lest we forget, whose favorite meal is a Big Mac with a Coke? The story today, the mom fluences embracing the make America healthy again movement.
I'm Josie Enzo and The Times and Sunday Times is US correspondent based in New York.
Tell us about RFK Jr. He's been in the news a lot this year, ever since he had that failed bid to be president. We did a profile of him on the podcast, but for anyone who has forgotten all of that already, remind us in the American imagination, who is he?
So he's part of perhaps the most famous political dynasty in America, the Kennedys. He's the son of the former attorney general and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, and the nephew of the assassinated president, John F. Kennedy, who's kind of working quietly, sort of below the public consciousness as an environmental lawyer for some years and a kind of clean water crusader suing these big companies and corporations. For those of us who are fans of Kirby enthusiasm, he married the lead actress, Cheryl Hines.
And over the years, he's been suffering from a self-described case of brainworm, which has kind of caused some of his ideas to have grown increasingly fringe, in some cases, pretty extreme. The CIA was involved in my...
uncle's murder and that they were subsequently involved in the cover-up. Lee Harvey Oswald was the CIA asset and he was recruited, you know, in 1957.
COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most of me are Ascomacic Jews and Chinese.
He's kind of over the years wrongly claimed that the polio vaccine was linked to autism. He sort of rose to national prominence during the pandemic as one of the kind of most influential vaccine deniers in the country. He called the coronavirus vaccine the deadliest vaccine ever made. And he sort of breathed this very deep distrust of the medical institutions. But if you were to have him in the room today and say you are a vaccine denier, he would deny that, wouldn't he?
Yeah, he says he's not a vaccine denier. I mean, he's given, he said he gave his own kids a vaccine, but he has been very, very skeptical of the polio vaccine in particular, as well as the COVID one. He hasn't actually called for an outright ban for any of them, but he's obviously caused kind of deep distrust among people about their efficacy and what might be going into our bodies. He has also obviously said that there is no safe vaccine.
You've talked about that the media slanders you by calling you an anti-vaxxer. And you've said that you're not anti-vaccine, you're pro-safe vaccine. Difficult question. Can you name any vaccines that you think are good? I think some of the live virus vaccines are probably so affirming more problems than they're causing. There's no vaccine that is safe and effective.
So it's sort of much of a merchandise as to whether he's a denial or not then. He ran against Donald Trump, of course, for the presidency, dropped out, and yet is now Trump's pick for health secretary. So how did he manage that?
Yes, he's this kind of disgruntled lifelong and now former Democrat who ran as an independent and the presidential election and gained a non insignificant amount of support. I mean, we're talking millions and millions of people. He then sort of did a deal with the devil, if you like, which saw him agree with Trump to step out of the race.
Trump was worried that, you know, he was gaining in popularity. He could see that and he was worried that he could become a kind of third party spoiler, which would have hurt him more than Kamala Harris. From the RFK junior camp, he saw it as a way to remain in the political conversation and to get his hands kind of on the levers of power, if you will, and he was kind of jockeying for the Department of Health and Human Services because he thought there that he could affect real change. So basically it was kind of a marriage of convenience for both of them, really.
Yes, and they are on the cusp of actually having their vows formalised, aren't they? He needs to go through confirmation hearings to actually become health secretary. Do we know what he has promised to do if all that happens without a hitch? Oh, so many things. Where to start?
I mean, some of it's very reasonable, especially looking at those of us looking from across the pond. He wants to ban junk food in school meals, which he says is causing an epidemic of diabetes. Jamie Oliver was doing that here decades ago. Exactly. And to quote him, he said American children are swimming around in a toxic soup.
He also wants to remove fluoride from drinking water. He wants to restrict the use of seed oils that have kind of become ubiquitous and fast food here. He also kind of wants to more broadly rein in the influence, the corporate influence on the medical industry. Something in particular that he suggested was kind of stopping these pharmaceutical companies from advertising directly to consumers. So if any Brit among us has ever watched American TV, you'll know that they're every second advert here.
Yes, with all the very terrifying possible side effects ending with death at the end of it usually. Sped up very, very quickly. Yeah, exactly. Just so you might miss the fact that sudden blindness might be coming your way.
And our kid, he has been spending quite the time walking the halls of the Senate in recent weeks in anticipation of all this confirmation hearing business. Do we have any sense of how successful he's being in maybe pushing back any possible challenge or discontent?
So by all accounts, it's quite a smooth political operator from people I've spoken to. He's won over a number of Democrats, as well as Republicans. And there is kind of reporting around that he will get enough votes to be confirmed. People like Bernie Sanders, who is a Democratic socialist, and aligned with him on a lot of these issues has been making kind of positive noises about it.
I think what he's saying about the food industry is exactly correct. Concerned about their profits could care less about the health of the American people. I think they have to be taken on. I think on the other hand, when Mr. Kennedy talks about taking fluoride out of our water system, I think what the scientific community will tell you that would be a disaster in terms of dental health in this country. His views on vaccine
very wrong in so many ways. So we will see how the process unfolds. Let's swap though, because this is some of the reporting you've also been doing, Washington DC and Senators there for mum influences in Austin, Texas and other places. Incredibly, they are very much part of this story. Who did you meet?
So I spoke to three or four women who kind of describe themselves as mom fluences, as well as a woman who not only is a mom fluencer, but she also is someone who works in advocacy and has done with RFK Junior, dating back at least a decade. So this is a kind of a community of like-minded, concerned mothers who sort of share information and sometimes misinformation online through the social media accounts.
They often refer to in this kind of online speakers, crunchy granola mums, which has sort of become a shorthand for women who practice a sort of naturalistic, holistic lifestyle that incorporates into their parenting. And that involves what kind of thing? Classic crunchy mum does what?
Classic crunchy mum. So, okay, there's a baffling array of these online modern parenting phrases. So crunchy granola, let's just break it down. It's a kind of think unmedicated birth, cloth nappies, breastfeeding through toddlerhood. And then on the other side, the silky granola, which kind of embraces this medical science and screen time for your kids. So kind of caught on, I don't know, five, six, seven years ago. And is this a big thing?
It is fairly big yeah i mean there is so much i mean i've i'm now part of this community by one of my algorithm by says my algorithm is very messed up now um so i see a hell of a lot of it but yeah i mean there's there's a very real concern among among mothers in particular who share information about everyday household items and their ingredients and they look at nappies and formula and sunscreen and cereal and you know i mean it's easy to make fun of it but
You know, when you live in America, you can really see that this is something that probably people should be more aware of. Totally. So tell us in detail a bit about some of the women you met. How are you doing? Good for you. You just did a kid's story time at the library. So cute. How are you today? I just have a three and a half year off. Okay, great.
Yeah, Diana Atia. So she's 27. She's a mother of a three-year-old. She was originally from California, but moved to Austin, Texas during the pandemic. But we can get into that later. She kind of runs a popular social media account. On my page, on social media is like, hey, let's try to educate. I'm not a doctor. I'm not giving you advice on, OK, I'm going to go to ER. I'm not going to go to the ER. I'm not a doctor.
However, I want to give you the information that you need so that you can make an educated decision. And I think that's what a lot of crunchy moms are very important is like informed consent. Because you can't make a proper consent that says yes or no. If you don't have all the information, like this is something very basic. Like, you know, you can't properly consent if you're being lied to.
I kind of asked her if she had a sort of aha, maha moment, make America healthy again moment. And she said when she was pregnant, she found herself kind of worrying about things that she was putting into her body. Everything changes. I think when you become a mom, and that's really kind of what woke up. Hey, like.
I should actually, these are things I should care about whereas before I didn't really think of them and my everyday life and then also just being like the geeky sort of our kids health. It's like, oh, there's so much to think about, you know, because it really affects them. So definitely you have to think about it and what you didn't before.
So she began reading about all these books to kind of prepare for a natural birth for a daughter, healthy living. She talked about one particular one called how to raise a healthy child in spite of your doctor, which sort of become her Bible. It's really funny when you read it, but I mean, that book is just a wealth of knowledge. I mean, if my daughter's sick, like, I, of course, consult the book and then I'll, you know, schedule a doctor's visit if I need to, but it really gives me like the practical hands on advice.
So yeah, she has followers and she talks about these issues online and she celebrated when RFK Junior was nominated with a little video dancing to Asha. And interestingly, I guess a bit like the sort of voter base of RFK Junior is sort of across left and right.
Yeah, it's interesting. So this RFK junior platform has kind of attracted this sort of unusual horseshoe alliance, which we don't often see. I mean, we have a little bit with Trump, but this sort of far left natural health enthusiasts and the more kind of libertarian, conservative, leaning voters who have kind of combined in their concern on this issue. So you have Diana, who has voted Trump in the past and leans conservative, but
It's not doesn't describe itself as kind of enthusiastically maggot, but that way and then you have Becketana, who is friends with Diana. All right, can you hear me? Even better. All right, perfect. She's a mother of two who runs a homestead in rural Virginia.
I started eating meat again. First thing I started with was eggs and I like knew I wanted chickens, but I lived in the suburbs without like, wasn't allowed. So we eventually moved to the country so we could have chickens. And right now we have chickens, ducks and geese. She described herself as very left leaning. So she kind of finds herself drawn to third party candidates. In the past, she's supported Bernie Sanders, who I mentioned before as a democratic socialist, so kind of to the left of the democratic party.
I loved that Bernie really talked about the issues in our healthcare system that are really bad. And issues within the corporate capture of American politics in terms of someone breaking up the issues within our food system. I feel like RFK was the first one to really talk about that. And I feel like that's something that moms really care about. And then you have then Honeycutt.
My gosh, this Maha movement and everything happening with Kennedy flooded my inbox. Who's the founder of Moms Against America and she's, you know, a bit more of a libertarian. I mean, you're kind of working relationship with RFK Jr. Ghostback sometime, doesn't it?
Yeah, seven years. He's been an advisor for Moms Across America, and we would speak often. Yeah, he's a man of integrity, compassion, honesty, brilliance. And I'm very glad to see that there are many people that are now recognizing, you know, from both major parties, from parties all across America and around the world.
that it's time to do something, that the future that is before us is not viable for human beings if we continue at the rate that we're going. And as you say, this is all rather reasonable sounding because you're a mum, you've got a young child in the United States, you know, there's lots of stuff in American food that you might not want to give a child in yet which they're given. Completely. But I guess at the same time, it's very easy to tip into the land of misinformation.
Coming up, we separate the fact from the fiction in the crunchy mama ha movement. That's in a moment.
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Josie, we've been talking crunchy mums, crunchy granola mums, and RFK Jr. And they're interested in what he might be up to as of when he's confirmed as Donald Trump's new health secretary in the United States. Just a moment ago, you were hinting at, you know, what might seem hard to argue with some of the opinions that, you know, like these school males shouldn't be full of additives and sugar.
We can get quite close into then just scare stories and misinformation and disinformation.
Yeah, so it's interesting. So I think one of the things I really want to do is kind of ask them what they where they got their information from. I mean, you can kind of have low information influences, but also there are a lot of mothers who take a very vested interest and kind of essentially make it their profession to look into these things. So someone like Becker told me I asked her and she said she looked at only peer reviewed medical literature, which I found interesting. She used to be a vegan, but now she has kind of cooking videos using organic only ingredients.
And then Diana, yeah, she kind of goes a bit further, I guess, and she does things like drink raw milk, which is against the food and drug administration's advice because of the listeria risk and obviously listeria is something you absolutely don't want to get when you're pregnant. She has substitutes for everyday things like deodorant using kind of magnesium or lemon.
you know, you can go back and look at these articles that are like propaganda against holistic medicine. That's like basically for all this medicine as like quacks and you know, as a matter of nothing. But before then, that was medicine. And now it's like now because people realize, hey, we can make a promise. And off of it, you know, that's weird. Don't don't follow it. Don't don't drink onions. Don't drink this kind of tea. Don't take any herbs. Like those are weird and those are not FDA approved.
She also kind of has an interesting take on, I was talking to, I mean, I was talking to the day after my own kid had a fever from a cold and she was talking to me about what she does as a kind of first line of defense. And she said that she often gives her daughter onion water if she's spiking a fever. Well, of course, I think I approve. It's just onions and water. Like, that's okay. You can try that. It's not going to hurt you. But you know what, it can hurt you is, you know, things like time and all or
You know, different drugs. Hylenol here, which I guess is parasyseum a lot home, but you know, mothers give it to their kids to kind of produce fever.
You were actually having medical reasons that it exists, right? Your body gets really high temperatures, so it can kill the virus inside your meal. And I think that when we just rush to like, hey, let's give them Tylenol and break the fever, well then the virus is still there and it comes back.
And a lot of people worry about seizures if your child's fever is at too high. Well, actually, seizures only happen when there's a rapid reduction in temperature. And that happens when you kiss Tylenol when it's like, oh, it's too high. Let me give the baby Tylenol just to make the fever break. But doctors, we've spoken to deny that there's any kind of increased risk of seizures with these drugs and say it's about managing a child's pain and misery, essentially.
So if a child has a particularly bad fever, paracetamol and not onion water, might be a good thing. That's what they advise. And this isn't something that's kind of linked to a profit. So I mean, it's kind of based in medical science. Yes. And then of course, there's the issue of vaccines, which we're discussing with regards to RFK Jr. If they're all fans of him, do they subscribe to his? There are quote, no safe vaccines business.
So they were kind of coy when I asked them about whether they gave their children vaccines, but two of them told me they kind of moved from California during the pandemic where childhood vaccines were recently mandated to other states where they're a bit more liberal.
He was a demonization of anyone who was like not, you know, promask, pro-vaccine. I mean, that was just crazy. It's crazy to think like you could not go to a grocery store. You could not go into certain restaurants if you did not have your like vaccination card. And I'm like, how do you just like let that happen? Like that really happened. And no one said anything. And no one did anything. And everyone just complied.
So Diana wants to abolish what's called the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, which is of 1986, which kind of created a compensation program for vaccine injury claims, but largely absolved his drug makers of responsibility. I think overturning is huge because it allows us to actually question, you know, what's in these vaccines? Are these proven to be the best? Can there be a better way? Can there be a healthier way or a healthier alternative?
All the women actually agreed on this, that they just, they didn't necessarily want to see a national ban, but they wanted the freedom to choose. So some of them hadn't given their children vaccines. Zen in particular was the most extreme. And she said, you know, God, he's given us a natural virus, fighting tools and there's no place for vaccines in our bodies. God has made our bodies and are amused at those the way that they're supposed to be. And perfect. They're not supposed to be messed with, with aluminum, in toxins and vaccines, you know,
And she was one of the two mothers that moved from California and she moved to North Carolina where there's religious exemptions for her children. Interesting. You know, when I brought him to a doctor and that doctor agreed with, you know, that, yeah, he shouldn't get any more vaccines. Neither should either one of his brothers, one almost died from pecans Thanksgiving evening, you know, nuts and the stuffing. He had like 20 different food allergies. His other brother got autism symptoms and allergies. When, when a doctor,
that reviewed 36 pages of medical records that I submitted to her agreed that they should not no longer have any vaccines. She gave them a permanent lifetime medical exemption and Governor Newsome decided that he knew better and said, no, that those life those medical exemptions are not valid. And it's a fascist it's a that's a fascist state. Yeah, that's. And you moved to North Carolina, right? Now I live in North Carolina. Yes. And they have religious they had religious exemption here.
And of course, there isn't any proven link between vaccines and a child then having autism or ADHD or developing allergies. So that is very much at the more questionable end of the spectrum of things. Do they have a point on some of the other items though? Only because when you look at what is in American food, there are lots of things there that are actually banned in Europe. So why shouldn't they ban them in the US as well?
Of course, I mean, so they pointed to chemicals and food additives and dyes that are allowed in the US that aren't in Europe. So Zen Honeycutt, for example, pointed out that there's 1,300 endocrine disruptors that are allowed by the FDA, but only three are allowed in Europe. Endocrine disruptors are things that sort of...
slightly affect how your hormones work in your body, isn't that right? Yeah, and in childhood, that's particularly exaggerated. And then another specific one that all of them mentioned was this kind of weed killer glyphosate, which is also an endocrine disruptor, which is used by crop farmers in almost everything, and is partially banned in some countries in Europe, but there's no total ban in Europe, but that was a major concern for them.
So on the one level, they are suggesting things which are quite out there and based on misinformation. But on the other hand, they're also saying things like, why can't we have similar food standards to what we enjoy here in the UK, for example?
Yeah, and to add to that, I mean, my kid is breastfed, but I still looked into all of the ingredients in formulas. And the standard is really, really different. And I know a lot of parents here, they're actually in poor European products or ones with European standards. And you kind of notice that there are a lot of things that are not allowed in ingredients in infant formula that are allowed to. And then anybody who's ever tried to buy milk or eggs in the US as well as a British person can definitely remember sort of how strange it is in comparison.
What are they all hoping RFK Junior will do? Is there a checklist that they have, which they are hopeful about? Yeah, so I asked them that. And almost across the board, the top one was the banning of glyphosate, which is this weed killer. The second priority for a lot of them was banning food dyes, which are already outlawed in Europe. And they pointed out, can trigger hyperactivity in children. And the third was the kind of greatest scrutiny and transparency around vaccines.
So what they're wanting from RFK Junior there, I mean, how much does that actually map onto what he will and might do? I mean, almost totally. I mean, I think they're very happy to kind of leave it in his hands and for him to make the decisions. I think there's a lot of support for him and his ideas in it. But at the heart of it, RFK does go a little bit further than what these mothers are calling for.
Wi-Fi radiation opens up your blood-brain barrier, and so all these toxics that are in your body can now go into your brain. You get Russian some more about Wi-Fi radiation than they developed as a weapon, and a lot of the really good signs came out of Russia.
There's no time in American history or human history that kids were going to shoot schools and shooting their classmates. It really started happening. Co-terminus with the introduction of these drugs. Yes. And the other drugs.
but he's essentially trying to take on two, three huge lobbies, big farmer, big ag, big food, big agriculture. Yeah, big farmer. You need to use the Maha slogan. Yeah, so I mean, I think that they think a lot of the things he's doing are very ambitious.
Yes, and we'll see what happens with the Senate confirmation, but say he gets through and he is in Donald Trump's cabinet. Not all of this aligns with Donald Trump's view of the world, does it? I mean, firstly, you know, regulating some of these companies to say they can't use some of these ingredients. Donald Trump wants a sort of bonfire of red tape like last time. Also, Donald Trump's favorite food, is it not McDonald's and Coca-Cola?
He's the biggest McDonald's fan on this planet, I think. There's rumours that he sometimes eats it three times a day. And McDonald's is kind of one of the largest users of the seed oil that RFK Junior absolutely hates.
Yeah, I mean, he's going to face a number of obstacles, too numerous to list, not least Trump. But yeah, I mean, Trump is obviously extremely reliant on these corporate backers in these industries. I mean, they helped get him into office. And I think along with Elon Musk and Vivek, Ramaswami, I mean, he's stated his desire to kind of deregulate some of the same industries that his future health are as trying to hold to greater account.
But what I think is interesting that a lot of people remark on about Trump's appointments is they're a bit, they're disruptors, they're a bit, burn it from the ground up characters like RFK. And so who knows, you know, this is the way that America has been for the last half century. And there are maybe too many people invested in RFK not getting his way, but I mean, it's going to be an interesting journey nonetheless.
Josie Enza, US correspondent for The Times. Head to TheTimes.com for her interviews with all those crunchy mums that will put a link in the description of this episode. And if that wasn't enough, RFK Jr. for you, you can have a listen back to the profile we did of him. We'll put a link to that episode in the description as well.
This episode was produced by Taryn Segal with Production Help from Sam Chantarasak. The executive producer was Kate Ford and Sam Design and Theme Composition were by Marla Seto. If you've any thoughts on what you've heard, do get in touch any time. The story at thetimes.com is how to reach us. I'm Luke Jones. See you soon.
This podcast is brought to you by Wise, the app for doing things in other currencies. Sending or spending money abroad? Hidden fees may be taking a cut. That's why you should use Wise. You get the currency you need where you need it for less. Tap to pay in euros in Malta. Easily move rupees to Mumbai. From paying overseas bills to sending money to family back home, you have up to 40 currencies in the palm of your hand.
Wise gives you the real exchange rate like the one you usually see on Google, which means you'll spend less on fees and more of your money gets where you need it to be. Join millions of customers managing their money with Wise. Download the Wise app today or visit wise.com.
You want work to be less hard work. You hear an ad for MHR, so you reach out. We connect your department systems, which leads to real-time data sharing that uncovers new insights, which empower your decision-makers and triple monthly sales, which leads to high fives and awkward hugs. You say a big thank you. We say you're welcome.
The science behind HR, payroll and finance. The science behind a new world of work. Discover more at mhrglobal.com.