By Liz Essley Whyte, Jennifer Calfas and Sabrina Siddiqui

Three prominent Make America Healthy Again influencers who have been publicly critical of President Trump's domestic pesticides push were ushered Thursday afternoon into the White House.

Their usual champion, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., hadn't been able to stop the administration from issuing an executive order propping up the production of a controversial weedkiller, a decision that unleashed backlash from the movement. MAHA activist Courtney Swan described herself as disillusioned with the Trump administration last month. "It's starting to feel like both sides are in on it, and we're being scammed," she said.

The MAGA-MAHA alliance is in a precarious place, seven months before midterm elections in which White House officials hoped Kennedy fans would boost Republicans' showing among women and independents much as they did in 2024. The meeting Thursday, initiated by the White House, was an effort to win back MAHA moms, people familiar with the matter said. It came as Kennedy has been put on a tighter leash in Washington and MAHA is fighting to retain influence.

In a West Wing meeting that lasted more than an hour, the activists shared concerns about the slow pace of food-policy changes and Trump's recent support of the pesticide glyphosate, sold as the weedkiller Roundup. Kennedy and four senior White House officials, including White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and top Trump adviser Stephen Miller, listened and brought up MAHA achievements, such as the new food pyramid.

The influencers were then invited into the Oval Office, where Trump welcomed them, told them he thought Kennedy was doing a great job and pushed the Diet Coke button he keeps on his desk, after a joke about it not playing well with a healthy crowd. The button produced a staffer with a glass bottle of Diet Coke on a tray. The activists left with gold Trump challenge coins and their selection of MAGA merchandise -- for podcaster Alex Clark, a "Trump 2028" hat, which she picked "to troll the libs."

The activists, including Swan, said they felt encouraged that the White House was on their side.

"They were asking questions with curiosity," she said Thursday evening. "To me as someone who was fighting his fight for so long, I was blown away."

Kennedy has been met with a string of disappointments, with his surgeon-general pick stalled in Congress and uncertainty reigning after his hand-selected vaccine panel was dismantled by a federal judge. The White House has sought to quiet vaccine rhetoric coming from Kennedy's shop, worried about its unpopularity in polling.

In response, Kennedy's MAHA followers have unleashed a barrage of criticism, upset about the new direction on vaccines as well as the pro-pesticide moves. White House leaders are trying to figure out how to maintain careful messaging on vaccines while retaining the loyalty of some of Kennedy's ardent followers.

"If the MAHA-MAGA alliance falls apart and MAHA doesn't show up for Republicans this midterms, this could very well be the peak of what MAHA is able to accomplish," said David Mansdoerfer, a consultant who served as a health official in the first Trump administration.

It is unclear whether the administration's outreach will be enough to quell MAHA voters' concerns. Vani Hari, an influencer known as the Food Babe who was invited to the White House meeting but couldn't attend because a scheduling conflict, still intends to protest the administration's support of the maker of glyphosate in a "People versus Poison" rally later this month.

Dr. Joel Warsh, a pediatrician who has backed Kennedy, said he had seen some allies shift from describing themselves as MAHA supporters, instead now saying more generally that they fight for health.

"Glyphosate was the issue that pushed it over the edge for a lot of people," he said.

The activists in the White House meeting said no specific policy promises were made. Still, they said they felt reassured that senior White House leaders cared about their movement and had listened to them speak about how devastating the pro-glyphosate moves had felt.

"MAHA is a key base in the historic coalition that resoundingly re-elected President Trump, and the Administration regularly meets with the MAHA community to hear their concerns and advice," White House spokesman Kush Desai said." Yesterday's roundtable was another productive discussion."

Kennedy's agenda has stalled across several areas. He said in a "60 Minutes" interview in February that he would act on a petition from former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. David Kessler concerning ultraprocessed food. But the initial deadline to respond to the petition has come and gone with no response. The administration has trumpeted but not implemented several other food initiatives -- such as a definition of ultraprocessed food that would allow for more regulation, food-labeling rules and closing a food-additive loophole.

"There have been a lot of these big announcements and there hasn't been a lot of action taken," Swan said, a concern she said she shared with the White House officials in the meeting. She said the gathering helped reassure her that meaningful changes take time.

"HHS has driven historic reforms -- from overhauling food policy and increasing transparency to lowering drug prices and investing $50 billion in rural health -- all while advancing President Trump's Make America Healthy Again agenda," said HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon.

Surgeon general nominee Dr. Casey Means attended the White House meeting, where the activists discussed the urgent need to confirm her. Her nomination has stalled in the Senate over concerns about her views on vaccines, and Trump last week told reporters that it was "possible" Means's nomination would be withdrawn, saying the White House had "a lot of great candidates" for the role.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been another headache for Kennedy. A judge invalidated many of his moves to remake a key vaccine advisory panel to the CDC, and the White House and Kennedy are still deliberating over whether to appeal the decision, people familiar with the matter said. One option is to repopulate the committee with some of the same members after using a more thorough vetting process, people familiar with the matter said.

Federal health officials, including Kennedy, were interviewing candidates to lead the CDC in recent weeks, even as a self-imposed, late-March deadline passed to announce their nominee, according to people familiar with the matter.

The White House wants a CDC nominee who has traditional health credentials and won't spark headlines about vaccine skepticism, people familiar with the matter said. That description is a far cry from Kennedy's first pick to lead the CDC, Dr. Dave Weldon, a former congressman and vaccine critic whose nomination was withdrawn last year.

"How can you have Bobby on Joe Rogan and the word 'vaccine' never escapes his lips?" said Dr. Robert Malone, a Kennedy ally who recently quit the vaccine advisory panel, on a recent livestream of an antivaccine show. He suggested that voters who wanted more scrutiny on vaccines had been abandoned by the administration. "You've been thrown under the bus big time."

Write to Liz Essley Whyte at liz.whyte@wsj.com, Jennifer Calfas at jennifer.calfas@wsj.com and Sabrina Siddiqui at sabrina.siddiqui@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 10, 2026 18:37 ET (22:37 GMT)

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