Trump angering MAHA with glyphosate order gives Democrats an opening

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An attendee holds a Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Moms sign at the end of a press conference announcing of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) intent to phase out the use of petroleum-based synthetic dyes in the nation’s food supply, at the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 22, 2025.

Elizabeth Frantz | Reuters

President Donald Trump is careening toward the Make America Healthy Again iceberg after issuing an executive order to boost the domestic production of a key herbicide called glyphosate. Democrats see an opportunity to steer the health-conscious movement back to their side.

Trump strode into a second term in the White House after former Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dropped his independent bid for president and endorsed him. Kennedy’s MAHA movement, which disavows chemicals in food and pushes natural alternatives, played a key part in Trump’s victory — and Trump rewarded Kennedy by making him Health and Human Services secretary.

But Trump’s recent moves that benefit the very chemicals MAHA hates are creating fissures in the base that helped deliver him to the White House, with less than nine months to go until the pivotal midterm elections and primary elections starting next week. Democrats who hope to strip Trump’s near-total control of Washington now see an opportunity to claw MAHA back into their fold.

“What the President did in the EO, and sort of saying, you know, ‘trust me on this one, we’ll get to it later,’ has really angered a lot of people,” Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, the top appropriator on the panel with oversight over the Environmental Protection Agency, said in an interview with CNBC. “It does create some huge opportunities for candidates who are willing to talk about the health of our diet, ‘food is medicine’ [and] toxic chemicals in our environment.”

Pingree is pushing a bill to revoke the executive order on glyphosate with Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and has long advocated against chemicals in food.

At issue for MAHA is not only last week’s executive order to spur glyphosate — the main chemical in Bayer-Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup, which has been linked in the past to cancer — but is still deemed safe by the EPA. MAHA advocates say the White House and Republicans have spurned them at multiple turns.

The administration has also sided with Bayer-Monsanto in a Supreme Court case that would weaken petitioners’ ability to sue if they believe they got cancer from a pesticide or herbicide. And congressional Republicans are pushing a new farm bill with what MAHA advocates argue is a “liability shield” for chemical manufacturers.

“This EO is feeling very, very much like the breaking point,” said Kelly Ryerson, a MAHA advocate who is known by the moniker “Glyphosate Girl.” “People can’t continue to make excuses for the administration and saying, ‘well, you know, they’ll get to it or whatever it is,’ because it’s just not happening.”

Kelly Ryerson, known by her supporters as “Glyphosate Girl,” poses for a portrait, Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026, in Miami.

Marta Lavandier | AP

Ryerson said the contingent of MAHA that she sees fleeing the Trump administration is the independents that supported Kennedy and the Democrats who crossed the aisle to support Trump in the hopes that he would make good on Kennedy’s health agenda.

“That is a very, very, very real, very large contingent of the group, and very concerning in terms of going into midterms now,” Ryerson said.

Many in the MAHA movement were initially aligned with Democrats. Some worked to elect former President Barack Obama, making the embrace of Trump especially shocking for Democrats. Republicans have traditionally aligned with chemical manufacturers and big agricultural interests on pesticides and herbicides, supporting the industries’ desire for less oversight and regulation.

“I’ve had conversations with people who are, you know, very engaged in the MAHA movement, who say, ‘Are there Democrats who support these things besides you?’” Pingree said. “I’m like, holy s—, like how have we missed the boat here? … We have huge numbers of people who will sign on to legislation like this or support these kinds of issues.”

Pingree said she’s encouraging her caucus to speak more often on MAHA issues and trying to find them opportunities to engage on the issue.

U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) speaks at a press conference hosted by the Climate Action Campaign outside of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. on April 9, 2025.

Bryan Dozier | AFP | Getty Images

Other Democrats are taking the opportunity to engage, as well. Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., said in an interview in the Capitol that the administration’s move represents an opportunity for Democrats.

“I think the answer is yes, especially given the fact that Kennedy has basically thrown his own people under the bus completely,” Heinrich said. “We need to demonstrate that we’re actively working on those issues and that we’ll do it in a way that will be consistent and predictable.”

“This whole practice of using glyphosate to desiccate crops before you turn them into Cheerios, that does not play well in New Mexico,” Heinrich said, noting a particularly hot-button issue for MAHA.

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And Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado, a Democrat who has been vocal on MAHA and was “excited” by RFK’s appointment as health secretary, told CNBC in a statement that he has “always been supportive of getting rid of harmful pesticides in our food to make Americans safer.”

“RFK Jr. used to feel that way too, and it’s incredibly disappointing to see that he and the administration are turning their backs on Americans this way,” Polis said. “The President’s decision to side with large scale chemical manufacturers ultimately makes Americans less healthy.”

Kennedy has backed the administration’s executive order on glyphosate, despite once winning a $290 million case for a man who said he got cancer from the chemical. In a lengthy statement on X this week, he said it is necessary to bring “chemical production back to the United States and end our near-total reliance on adversarial nations.” He noted the administration’s commitment to regenerative agriculture, which eschews traditional chemical applications in favor of practices that enhance soil health, as one pillar of the strategy.

“If these inputs disappeared overnight, crop yields would fall, food prices would surge, and America would experience a massive loss of farms even beyond what we are witnessing today,” Kennedy said, blaming Washington for entrenching big ag in chemical use. “We are now changing course — without destabilizing the food supply.”

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks to the media following U.S. President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., U.S., Feb. 24, 2026.

Kylie Cooper | Reuters

White House spokesperson Kush Desai told CNBC in a statement that the Trump administration has delivered for MAHA on “removing artificial ingredients from our food supply, overhauling the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, re-examining baby formula, and more.”

“Democrats long talked about health issues, but President Trump and his Administration have actually delivered – and will continue delivering on the MAHA agenda,” Desai said. “The President’s executive order to shore up domestic production of elemental phosphorous, which is necessary to manufacture military equipment and other cutting-edge technology, is not going to change our commitment to Make America Healthy Again.”

Ryerson did not say that the MAHA movement was abandoning Trump and Kennedy altogether yet, leaving the door open for a course correction. She also noted Kennedy’s role at HHS does not have jurisdiction over pesticides, which are managed by the Environmental Protection Agency.

But she warned time is running out for the administration to act.

“There is no evidence at this moment to point to any moves whatsoever to limit these chemical exposures, and the only way I see the White House and Republican Party being able to make up for this in time for midterms is with a very real, very large move to finally do something protective,” she said.

Among those potential moves to appease MAHA would be a ban on pre-harvest desiccation, a process where weed killers are applied to crops before harvest to make harvesting easier. She also urged the administration to revoke its support for Bayer-Monsanto at the Supreme Court and to invest in regenerative agriculture.

It’s less clear whether Republicans who have dominated in agricultural districts for years are ready to meet MAHA where it’s at.

“They’ve gone through the science, they’ll continue to go through the science on this and we gotta bring it back to the science and the facts and the common sense,” said Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee. “Of course it has to be safe, and that’s fine to always look at it, but let’s make sure we’re dealing with the science.”

“If you just upended the ability to use it, you would dramatically affect the food supply, and that is the reality,” Hoeven said.