A new venture by the publisher of First Lady Melania Trump’s autobiography is giving fans of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement access to members of the president’s administration.
That, in turn, has led participants in the weekly “MAHA Action Media Hub” conference call to bizarre cameos from the movement's celebrities, including Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Mehmet Oz, a “recurring star” on the call, as well as “a shirtless Russell Brand [who] calls in from what appears to be a bathtub," reports Margaret Manto of NOTUS.
As she reported on Tuesday, MAHA activist and Skyhorse Publishing head Tony Lyons’ nonprofit organization, MAHA Action, convenes a weekly Wednesday conference call where luminaries like Dr. Oz or actress Cheryl Hines, wife of RFK Jr., mingle and speak with self-styled experts on America’s health issues.
According to Manto, “The calls offer a fleeting glimpse into Kennedy’s world, a dizzying kaleidoscope where alternative health practitioners appear alongside the governor of West Virginia. On any given week, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services could speak for a few minutes before a shirtless Russell Brand calls in from what appears to be a bathtub, or a former member of The Pussycat Dolls argues that the COVID-19 vaccine destroyed her ability to dance.”
Calling what occurs a window into “the growing pains of a fringe movement,” Manto reports that the conference call can be “awkward, often downright funny, each week the calls juxtapose a haphazard group of celebrities with real power — and show just how professionalized the MAHA movement has become.”
After noting that Dr. Oz has been known for calling in from both his office and while on the road, sometimes putting a damper on RFK Jr. pronouncements, the NOTUS report points out that he shares time with, for example, a listener who goes by the username of “Peter & Melissa BioHacking Stem Cells” who proposed, “Fluoride disconnects one from God.”
During one call, Calley Means, a senior White House adviser, told listeners, “This administration is inviting a conversation among the American people. These are not black and white issues,” before adding, “This administration is actually practicing science, which is messy, which is asking taboo questions.”
NOTUS’s Manto added, “The calls also leave clues as to how the MAHA camp has had to adapt to its new role within the Trump administration."
