Big Food: The Plan to Stop RFK Jr's MAHA in Its Tracks

A great reform movement always sparks a backlash. For RFK Jr.'s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) agenda, that backlash has grown from a whisper to a deafening roar. What began as muted concern among food and pharmaceutical lobbyists has morphed into an outright campaign of sabotage, targeting RFK Jr.'s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) agenda—a movement focused on reforming the American food supply, reducing reliance on ultra-processed products, and tackling the pharmaceutical middlemen driving up drug prices. co-opting, and confusion—a testament to the movement's burgeoning success. And now, in the wake of President Trump selecting Kennedy to lead Health and Human Services (HHS), the true extent of the opposition has come to light.

Independent journalist Lee Fang has pulled back the curtain, revealing secret strategies devised by Big Food, Big Pharma, and their army of lobbyists. Their goal? To kneecap RFK's efforts to unshackle American health from the grip of seed oils, ultra-processed food, and price-gouging pharmaceutical middlemen.

But the resistance runs deeper than boardroom schemes. There is an ongoing psyop to splinter the MAGA-MAHA coalition—an information war designed to deceive Trump voters into unwittingly defending the very industries RFK Jr. seeks to reform. If you think this is just another policy squabble, you’re not paying attention. This is a full-blown fight for the soul of America's health future.

The Battle Lines Drawn: Big Food Enters the Fray

The alarm bells first sounded in October. Invariant, a high-powered government relations firm advising food conglomerates like PepsiCo and the Corn Refiners Association, delivered a stark warning: RFK Jr.’s influence within Trump’s orbit posed an existential threat to business as usual.

By November, the whisper turned into a siren. Food lobbyists gathered to chart their response to the MAHA movement. Among them was Danielle Beck, a key figure representing giants like Doritos and Cap'n Crunch producers. Her advice was simple: weaponize the Senate confirmation process to box Kennedy in, much like how industry lobbyists once manipulated Congress into declaring frozen pizza a vegetable in 2011. That incident, driven by food companies leveraging their influence, shows how easily commonsense reforms can be derailed when powerful interests prioritize profits over public health. To earn the 50 votes needed for confirmation, Beck suggested RFK Jr. might have to “trade away key MAHA priorities,” a classic case of political hostage-taking.

The playbook isn’t new. It harkens back to 2011, when the House infamously classified frozen pizza as a vegetable to placate food lobbyists. As Fang reminds us, “this is what they do.” In that case, tomato paste magically became a stand-in for actual vegetables—a perfect emblem of industry power steamrolling common sense.

Influence or Sabotage? Lobbyists and Independent Media

Perhaps the most insidious revelation concerns the media. Jenny Werwa of Invariant floated a chilling strategy: Big Food should sponsor independent media outlets to steer coverage in their favor. If you think independent platforms like podcasts are immune to corporate capture, think again. Werwa’s message is clear: food companies aim to corrupt alternative media the same way Big Pharma bought out cable news.

This is no small threat. RFK Jr. and President Trump owe much of their momentum to independent media—a landscape untouched by the talking-point regurgitations of legacy outlets. RFK’s 2023 appearance on Joe Rogan and Trump’s pre-election interviews proved that long-form, unscripted discussions resonate deeply with American voters. This terrifies the establishment.

Lobbyists now hope to infiltrate that last bastion of truth-telling. Independent media, unlike legacy outlets, often relies on sponsorships and ad revenue from smaller, direct sources, making them vulnerable to co-optation by industry dollars. Without the massive corporate budgets propping up traditional news, these platforms can be more easily swayed—a risk that Big Food and Pharma are now eager to exploit. And once they do, the MAHA message risks dilution, distortion, or outright erasure. It’s a brilliant move, albeit one dripping with cynicism. The goal isn’t to persuade—it’s to muddy the waters, making truth harder to find and trust harder to earn.

The PBM Psyop: Divide and Conquer

While food lobbyists sharpened their knives, Big Pharma ran its own gambit. At the heart of their scheme is the pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) industry—a shadowy cartel that siphons billions by driving up drug prices. PBMs, as the Federal Trade Commission exposed, have “enriched themselves at the expense of consumers and smaller pharmacies.”

Enter H.R. 6283, the Delinking Revenue from Unfair Gouging Act (DRUG Act). This bill aims to end the pharmacy benefit managers' (PBMs) ability to profit by inflating drug prices, ensuring they charge only fixed fees for services instead of skimming revenue from prescription costs. This bill, introduced in November 2023, directly targets PBM profiteering. It bans PBMs from charging fees based on drug prices, a move that would obliterate their perverse incentives to inflate costs. It’s the kind of genuine reform President Trump once promised when he declared, “We’re gonna knock out the middleman.”

Yet now, a group called Conservatives for Lower Health Care Costs (CLHCC) has emerged, branding H.R. 6283 as a “Big Pharma bailout.” They offer no substantive critique of the bill—just vague fearmongering aimed at dividing Trump’s base. Here’s the kicker: CLHCC is a front group created by the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association (PCMA), which represents the very PBMs the bill would cripple.

This is classic psyop strategy. Create confusion, seed distrust, and frame your opponents as traitors. In this case, the PBM industry hijacks the populist MAHA message to trick conservatives into defending the indefensible. It’s a dirty, underhanded tactic—and it’s working. Several MAGA-aligned outlets have unwittingly amplified this narrative, all while RFK Jr. and President Trump push for reforms that would actually lower costs.

Why the Opposition is Terrified

The ferocity of this pushback reveals the strength of the MAHA movement. “The farm and processed food lobby must contend with a sea change,” Fang writes, “as the Republican Party increasingly embraces populist reform.” For decades, Big Food and Pharma relied on bought-and-paid-for politicians to keep Americans fat, sick, and dependent. Now, RFK Jr., with Trump’s backing, threatens to upend that status quo.

Consider this: Republican senators once hostile to Kennedy are now warming to his confirmation. Even Democrats like Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, and Kirsten Gillibrand have hinted at support. That bipartisan momentum terrifies the swamp. When Republicans and Democrats agree on anything, it’s usually a harbinger of doom for entrenched interests.

Conclusion: Stay Vigilant

The MAHA movement represents a genuine populist uprising—a chance to reclaim American health from the grip of corporate monopolies and political parasites. But the opposition is cunning, ruthless, and well-funded. They will exploit every trick in the book: bribing independent media, splintering coalitions with psyops, and holding reforms hostage in Congress.

If RFK Jr. is to succeed as HHS Secretary, and if Trump is to keep his promises, the MAGA-MAHA coalition must stay united, informed, and vigilant. This is a battle of endurance, wits, and willpower—a battle for nothing less than the health of the nation.

The stakes are clear: while the reformers push for genuine change, the forces of the status quo are determined to resist—and the choice between them will shape the future of American health. Choose wisely.

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