The people who helped build Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s political career just handed the Trump administration a report card, and it is mostly Fs. A scorecard released Thursday by MAHA activists, including Kennedy's former chief speechwriter and a former fundraiser from his 2024 campaign, says the administration broke more than 85% of its promises on food, agriculture and environmental health.
The Call Is Coming From Inside the Wellness Tent
Let's be clear about who wrote this thing. It is not a Democratic opposition research dump. It is not the work of some pharma-funded think tank. The scorecard comes from MAHA's own people, including Charles Eisenstein, Kennedy's former chief speechwriter, and Dave Murphy, a former fundraiser for his campaign. NBC News was first to report on it.
The author is Tiffany Cianci, a former Kennedy campaign adviser and MAHA advocate. Her verdict on the administration was not subtle. "We're asking the Trump administration to deliver on even the most basic promises they've made to the MAHA movement, and we've seen over and over again not just a lack of interest in doing so, but a blatant slap in the face."
A slap in the face. From the people who spent 2024 telling us Kennedy was going to take on Big Food and Big Chemical. Turns out the slap came from the guy they endorsed.
Approved Pesticides and Hired Lobbyists
The scorecard accuses the administration of doling out favors to the chemical industry. The specifics are the approval of new pesticides and the hiring of industry lobbyists and executives.
Then there's glyphosate. Advocates who wanted less pesticide exposure watched Trump issue an executive order to boost the supply of the weed killer in the United States. Not restrict it. Boost it. If your movement's founding premise is that corporations are poisoning the food supply, an order to make more of the stuff in Roundup is a rough way to find out who's driving.
This is the part where the whole thing curdles. MAHA promised to take on the chemical industry. The administration's answer was to put the chemical industry on the payroll.
Everyone Is Mad About Something Different
Here's what makes MAHA fascinating as a political creature. It was never one movement. It stitched together food safety hawks, environmentalists and vaccine skeptics under one banner: corporations are making us sick. That worked great when the enemy was an abstraction. It works less well when you're in government and have to pick.
The vaccine skeptics are furious about different things than the food people. Dr. Mary Talley Bowden and others have blasted Kennedy and Trump for allowing mRNA vaccines to stay on the market. Food safety advocates say Kennedy hasn't leaned hard enough on companies to pull synthetic dyes and other additives. The pesticide crowd has the glyphosate order.
Every faction got a different betrayal. It's almost efficient.
A Gaping Fissure, and the Midterms Are Coming
Peter Lurie, president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, put it plainly. "What started out as a hairline crack in the coalition is now widened to be a gaping fissure."
The numbers explain why anyone in the White House should care. A KFF poll from April found about 41% of U.S. adults support MAHA ideals. Most of them are Republicans or Republican-leaning independents. That is a big slice of the voters the GOP needs to show up in November, and the poll found that loyalty to Kennedy or Trump wasn't the main reason people backed the movement. They like the ideas. They don't necessarily like the people supposedly delivering them.
The discontent has also turned into open infighting between Kennedy loyalists, including some appointed to key government positions, and activists who stayed faithful to the original cause. Nothing says healthy coalition like your own appointees feuding with your own base.
The Official Response Is a Victory Lap
The White House did what the White House does. Spokeswoman Allison Schuster said the administration "has already secured extensive victories for the MAHA Agenda, including overhauling the dietary guidelines for Americans, axing artificial ingredients in our food supply, and investing in regenerative farming." She added that the coalition "has found a champion in President Trump."
HHS spokesperson Emily Hilliard said Kennedy "remains focused on delivering lasting reforms grounded in science, transparency, and accountability," and that in just 20 months the administration has "moved at a historic pace to advance MAHA across the federal government."
Notice what's missing. No response to the pesticide approvals. No response to the glyphosate order. No response to the lobbyists. Just a list of wins and the phrase "historic pace," which is what you say when the numbers don't back you up.
Even the Critics Are Making Excuses for Kennedy
The most revealing quote in the whole story is Cianci's. She acknowledged that many of the administration's actions on environmental toxins and food additives were outside Kennedy's purview. Fair enough. Kennedy doesn't run the whole government.
But she said his time in the administration has done "obvious harm" to his reputation, noting that his career involved suing the very pharmaceutical and pesticide companies the administration is now working with. "To see him not speaking out on the issues that are so obviously against everything that was promised is very hard because I believe ethically it's probably working against his own inclinations," she said.
That's the tell. Even his harshest critics keep reaching for a version of Kennedy who secretly agrees with them. He sat there while it happened.
The Dingo Take
Kennedy sold out his own movement. That's the headline, and it doesn't need decorating.
He built a following by promising to fight the chemical industry, then joined an administration that approves new pesticides, hires industry lobbyists, and orders more glyphosate. Cianci can say it's "probably working against his own inclinations" all she wants. Inclinations don't count when your signature is on the paperwork or your silence is on the record. The man who made a career suing these companies is now the friendly face on their government.
And here's the part that should bother everyone, MAHA fan or not. When a movement this large gets chewed up by the same corporate interests it was built to fight, the people who believed in it learn the worst possible lesson: that nobody in power was ever going to help. Wanting cleaner food and fewer poisons is not a fringe position. Roughly four in ten Americans say they back it. They got a branded movement, a cabinet seat, and a glyphosate order. Don't blame them for being angry. Blame the guy who made the promises.
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