The Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement seemed to be shaky—or even teetering. Last week, MAHA ally Marty Makary was forced to step down as head of the Food and Drug Administration by President Donald Trump. Trump himself caused fury with an executive order expanding agricultural usage of the herbicide glyphosate. And a poll by Politico found that nearly half of voters who call themselves MAHA supporters believe the Trump administration “has not done enough to make America healthy again.”
But this weekend’s trouncing of Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana in the Republican primary sent a very different signal. As the votes were being counted on Saturday night, I finally heard back from Tony Lyons, a staunch supporter of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and co-president of MAHA PAC, a political fundraising machine. Lyons had little to say to me during the campaign, when polls showed that Cassidy would probably advance to a runoff. According to the most recent Federal Election Commission filing, MAHA PAC spent $584,000 opposing Cassidy and supporting Julia Letlow, a two-term Congresswoman who entered the GOP primary for the Senate seat after Trump publicly encouraged her in January.
But Lyons was more vocal as soon as it was obvious that Cassidy, 68, would become only the second incumbent Louisiana senator to lose reelection since 1932. “Senator Cassidy defended big pharma and the broken medical establishment against the health and welfare of American families,” Lyons told me. “Voters across the country are joining the MAHA rebellion against the corruption that allowed companies to poison their children.”
Letlow, 45, won 45 percent of the primary vote, while Louisiana treasurer John Fleming received 28 percent. Cassidy finished last with just 25 percent.
