With Simon J. Levien, Cheyenne Haslett and Amanda Friedman
SENATE SHOWDOWN — Make America Healthy Again leaders are trying to sway a key Louisiana Senate primary, but their efforts have yet to make a splash, POLITICO’s Alice Miranda Ollstein reports.
MAHA Action, the advocacy arm of the movement, has endorsed Rep. Julia Letlow (R-La.) in the race to unseat Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, whose tough questioning of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as a committee chair has made him a top movement target.
The group’s affiliated MAHA political action committee pledged to spend just a million dollars — a small amount for a Senate campaign — to boost her chances of toppling Cassidy. Meanwhile, a local MAHA group with concerns about Letlow’s past support for vaccines has not joined forces with MAHA Action while Kennedy, MAHA’s founder, is preparing a national midterms blitz that doesn’t include Louisiana.
Why it matters: Defeating Cassidy — arguably the highest-profile Republican to challenge Kennedy’s rhetoric and policies on vaccines — would be a coup for the nascent movement, demonstrating its political power. But MAHA’s backing has not yet given Letlow a commanding lead in the polls. And top MAHA issues, like vaccines, food safety and environmental contamination, are not front and center in the race.
“I’ve honestly not heard the word ‘MAHA’ mentioned other than in the context of the PAC donating to Letlow’s campaign. It’s really not an issue,” said John M. Couvillon, a longtime Louisiana pollster and political analyst who has worked on behalf of John Fleming, a third GOP candidate in the race. “The race is about either [President] Donald Trump or about various imperfections” in each candidate’s record, he said.
Even so: MAHA PAC leader Tony Lyons said his group is the largest donor to Letlow’s campaign and her polling has “gone up dramatically” since its endorsement — claims borne out by recent surveys and fundraising reports.
“MAHA issues are in fact central to this race and to races all around the country, where in many cases they poll higher than most other issues for voters, especially for the all-important undecided voters,” he told POLITICO in a text. “It’s true that Big Pharma and big food would like to convince voters otherwise, but Julia Letlow is a strong insurgent candidate and she will win.
But Cassidy, despite dealing with blowback from the GOP base and MAHA, is holding his own. While most polling shows Letlow with a slight lead, all three candidates have a credible shot at qualifying for the June runoff.
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‘BIG LEAP’ FOR PSYCHEDELICS — President Donald Trump signed an executive order Saturday to ease restrictions on psychedelic drugs by bolstering research into their impacts on mental health, Amanda reports.
The order instructs the Food and Drug Administration to expedite reviews for psychedelic drugs — like ibogaine and psilocybin — and, if deemed safe and effective, green-light them through the agency’s new fast-tracked approval process. The drugs, which cause a hallucinogenic effect by impacting one’s serotonin receptors, are all currently illegal in the United States.
Key context: Psychedelic drugs have become increasingly popular among the country’s veteran population for treating mental illnesses like depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. The Department of Veterans Affairs has already financed research in the area. Therapeutic use of psychedelics has also been endorsed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his Make America Healthy Again movement.
“It’s disturbing to me and to the president that hundreds, in fact, thousands, of veterans are having to travel to Mexico or other countries to experiment with interventions that hold great promise,” Kennedy said during the signing.
Psychedelic drug companies and trade groups have jumped to champion the order. Robert Barrow, chief executive of Definium Therapeutics, which is developing a psychedelic drug to treat depression and anxiety, called the order a “big leap” for the industry in an interview with POLITICO.
What it doesn’t do: The order does not immediately call for the rescheduling of any of the drugs, currently designated as Schedule 1 substances, the Drug Enforcement Administration’s most dangerous drug classification.
Notable nugget: Popular podcaster Joe Rogan, a longtime supporter of psychedelic therapies, stood behind Trump during the signing. While giving some remarks, Rogan suggested a text sent to Trump about psychedelics’ medical use is what sparked the president’s order.
“The text message came back, ‘Sounds great! Do you want FDA approval? Let’s do it!’” Rogan said. “It was literally that quick.”
NEW MAHA BILL — Rep. Sharice Davids (D-Kan.) is partnering with MAHA caucus co-founder Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R-Pa.) on a bill to fund healthy foods and nutrition counseling for patients struggling with chronic illness, Simon reports.
The bipartisan effort reflects a broader shift, as some Democrats warm to the political appeal of the Make America Healthy Again movement and its focus on healthy eating and illness prevention — despite misgivings with the movement’s leader, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The bill: The Accountable Produce Is Medicine Act, introduced late last week, would direct the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation to pilot a food-as-medicine payment model.
Patients with or at risk of developing a chronic illness can receive a “produce prescription” as part of their overall treatment, featuring medically tailored groceries or meals, nutrition counseling and health monitoring. Medicare and Medicaid payments to providers for the treatments would be bundled.
Key context: Davids joins other Democrats in partially embracing MAHA. Maine Rep. Chellie Pingree has said she has “a lot in common” with MAHA moms, and Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, a staunch Kennedy critic, commended him Thursday for a program to study the effects of microplastics in the body.
Texas state Rep. Carrie Isaac told POLITICO that many Democrats privately wanted to join her MAHA caucus — one of the most prolific state groups for MAHA policy — but can’t because of its association with President Donald Trump.
‘PEOPLE VS. POISON’ — A prominent influencer of the Make America Healthy Again movement is promising a big turnout for next week’s Supreme Court protest of a chemical maker that’s trying to convince the justices to shield the company from lawsuits, Cheyenne reports.
Vani Hari, known as the “Food Babe” and an ally of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said more than 1,000 people have RSVP’d to the April 27 rally. A large turnout at the “People vs. Poison” protest could affirm the White House’s concerns about MAHA support for Republicans going into the midterms — signaling that it’s yet to mitigate the damage done by President Donald Trump’s decision to back the German chemical conglomerate Bayer in its suit.
Background: Bayer wants a shield from further lawsuits alleging its Roundup herbicide causes cancer. Trump compounded the blow to the MAHA movement, so far as Hari is concerned, by issuing a February executive order aimed at boosting production of Roundup’s principal ingredient, glyphosate. The White House said it was crucial to U.S. farming, weapons production and semiconductor manufacturing, and that the country was too dependent on China for the chemical.
Key context: The Hari-led protest will feature speakers from the MAHA movement, like influencers Kelly Ryerson, Zen Honeycutt and Alex Clark and regenerative farmer Joel Salatin, and also Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), who bridged partisan divides with a recent bill to prevent immunity shields for pesticide makers.
The plans follow an hourlong listening session earlier this month where senior White House officials attempted to make amends with the MAHA movement, which Hari said fell short.
“I don’t even think they’ve understood what’s about to come. I mean, there’s going to be thousands of people that are going to descend upon D.C. and say, ‘This is not OK.’ And they’re going to realize how big of a movement we have and how many voters we actually sway,” said Hari.
What’s next: Hari said inconsistent policies coming out of the Trump administration threatened the “spirit of the movement” and must be addressed with policy action, not lip service, if Republicans expect MAHA voters to turn out for them in this year’s elections.
STAT’s Angus Chen reports on the race to create a promising drug to target a pancreatic cancer protein.
