MAHA’s Perfect Villain

HealthMAHA’s Perfect VillainGlyphosate highlights the movement’s horseshoe politics and has nothing to do with vaccines.By Nancy WaleckiSamuel Corum / Sipa USA / APApril 27, 2026, 7:57 PM ET ShareSave This morning, a crowd gathered near the Supreme Court to protest the weed-killer Roundup. Inside, justices heard arguments for Monsanto v. Durnell, weighing whether to exempt the company that created Roundup from lawsuits alleging that it failed to warn users that its herbicide causes cancer. Outside, the protesters rehearsed long-running grievances against Monsanto: One man was passing out flyers about “the hidden truth” of genetically modified food, and one speaker railed against “Mon-Satan.” Developed by Monsanto and now owned by the German conglomerate Bayer, Roundup and its active ingredient, glyphosate, have long been concerns for left-leaning environmentalists; now the MAHA coalition has taken up the cause with enthusiasm. The headliners of “The People vs. Poison” rally were a who’s who of MAHA: The HighWire’s Del Bigtree; the host of the Turning Point USA podcast, Culture Apothecary, Alex Clark; the founder of Moms Across America, Zen Honeycutt; and the “Food Babe” and the rally’s organizer, Vani Hari.In this way, the event was a very public demonstration of MAHA’s horseshoe politics. The rally’s roughly 30 speakers included environmental activists and politicians from both parties. “This is not a left or right issue,” Democratic Senator Cory Booker, a surprise guest speaker and potential 2028 presidential candidate, told the crowd. “This is a right or wrong issue.” If Democrats have balked at MAHA’s rejection of vaccines, battling glyphosate has a chance of locking in the movement’s wider base of support.The safety of glyphosate is still contested. Bayer continues to emphasize that scientific assessments have not definitively linked glyphosate to cancer. It says that because pesticides are federally regulated and the EPA has deemed glyphosate safe, the company should not be subject to state-level lawsuits such as Durnell. The U.S. government, meanwhile, as Booker would tell it, has been on the “wrong” side of the issue. In February, President Trump passed an executive order to boost domestic glyphosate production; later this week, the House is expected to vote on the Farm Bill, which contains provisions that would also limit pesticide manufacturers’ legal liability. Earlier this month, the White House invited MAHA leaders, including Clark, for a roundtable to discuss their views on the issue. “We gave them ideas of things that they could do that would be an olive branch for moms that are upset about the glyphosate executive order,” Clark told me. She is hopeful, but said “it’s up to them if they’re going to do something or not.”For the moment, MAHA is still waiting, although the White House spokesperson Kush Desai told me that the administration has “more announcements on sustainable agriculture practices and other policies in store to build on MAHA victories from the past year.” He also stood behind Trump’s glyphosate order, which he said “simply seeks to strengthen our national security and end America’s decades-long reliance on foreign imports and supply chains,” adding, “This is ‘America First’ in action.” (HHS did not respond to a request for comment.)In theory, today’s MAHA rally was another nudge for the administration. Clark told me that she truly believes that MAHA won the presidency for Republicans in 2024, so for the…

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