Into the Belly of the Conspiracy Weavers
What I learnt while attending a MAHA Action Media Hub event
I attended a MAHA Action Media Hub event several weeks ago. These closed events are meant to rally the faithful and allow the MAHA leaders and influencers to put their spin on the issues. The MAHA online event on February 25, 2026 followed the Trump Executive Order declaring that glyphosate was essential. It was meant to diffuse the outrage and talk of rebellion. It seemed the followers and the faithful attending the Zoom call were ready to toe the line and move on. They preferred to fill up the comments bar with promotions of many of their wellness products or to share their curious ideas on health and well-being.
It was very much an evening to where grifters were raising fears to sell their wares to the terrified. Conspiracy was the MAHA commodity in ample supply.
MAHA Action is a curious group. It only has two people on its board, Tony Lyons as “co-founder” (the website does not say who the other founder was) and a bee farmer, Leigh Merinoff – a raw milk advocate who also has a position on RFK Jr’s PACs and his Children’s Health Defense. Del Bigtree, as one-time CEO of MAHA Action, seems to have been erased from all records. Nothing official, I’m sure, but there seems to be some trouble in paradise.
The media hub seems to be the main MAHA Action product, providing a platform for MAHA leaders to present short, weekly statements in an attempt to control the MAHA message and keep the movement’s faithful excited.
The February 25th event was chaired by Tony Lyons, the founder and president of Skyhorse Publishing, the organization that publishes RFK Jr’s books and, according to RFK Jr’s declaration of interests, a major source of his income. Lyons managed RFK’s original Democratic primary campaign, his American Values 2024 PAC and is now running the present MAHA PAC looking at options for RFK Jr to run in the 2028 presidential election. While Lyons also runs the MAHA Institute think tank (another Bigtree product), his title for the MAHA Media Hub event was as President of MAHA Action.
It seems safe to assume that Tony has taken over from Del as the face of MAHA under Bobby Jr (suggesting a shift away from the rabid anti-vaxxer faction).
The MAHA leaders were using their five minutes allotted to them to control the MAHA message. They called it a live event, and while some of the speakers had not mastered the unmute button, the distance between the speaker and the audience was so broad as to suggest it was all pre-recorded and tightly controlled. They did not allow for engagement or participation, followers could not ask questions and there was no attention paid to their concerns. MAHA is about control and propagation.
Lyons started the event with the elephant in the room: Trump’s Executive Order the week before making glyphosate an essential product. Most speakers addressed this point, trying to keep the troops loyal while assuring them that this was a temporary compromise. Lyons argued that if glyphosate were banned today, food prices would skyrocket. He threw the crowd some red meat, noting that RFK Jr talked about a new, laser-based means to kill weeds, but that this technology was not yet ready.
Yes, all farmers need to learn to work with laser beams because, well, … glyphosate.
Lyons was angry that people were trying to divide MAHA after Trump’s Executive Order on glyphosate. He seemed to suggest that the attacks were coming from industry lobbyists (like this obvious one). The reality is that Trump divided MAHA with his Executive Order and the angry MAHA Moms were finishing the job.
This was a damage control media event so it comes as no surprise that there were no significant MAHA Moms allowed to speak. The prime speaking slot was reserved for MAHA’s latest rising star, Florida Surgeon General, Joseph Ladapo.
Ladapo was very proud that Florida has been testing everything, basking in the glory of the outrage created by his tests of glyphosate in bread. This state surgeon general claims there is good data that shows how glyphosate causes fatty liver disease, destroys the gut biome, crosses the brain-blood barrier ... but outside of repeating these activist campaign talking points, no scientific support was provided. I suppose respecting science is just a “nice-to-have” for surgeon generals.
Ladapo then went off on a tangent about finding arsenic in candy. He claimed he doesn’t know where it was coming from, and did not get into how small the detection levels were. He missed a pure MAHA moment by failing to mention other health problems in candy, but that would have confused the good doctor’s chemophobia message.
To his credit, Dr Ladapo was one of the few MAHA speakers that evening who was not trying to sell a book or product to the faithful and fearful in attendance. He is selling himself and we should not be surprised to see a Representative Ladapo in the coming Congress.
It was time for the MAHA insider to come and report to the movement about how hard the administration is working to secure their health. No, not Casey Means, the other one.
Calley Means claims to be a senior advisor to the office of the HHS Secretary but that title seemed to have expired. He is now (just) a consultant but I’m sure he will also weave that into a story of great influence. US law says individuals can only work as a special government employee for 130 days before they would have to declare or give up their financial interests, and Calley was not going to part with those griftworthy honeypots. True to form, though, Calley is claiming to be more than he is.
He started his speech getting right into the glyphosate issue. It is not just a herbicide and banning glyphosate is more than just a regulatory challenge. Calley Means boldly claimed “We are fighting for civilization and this is existential!”
He admitted that glyphosate has been the most vexing issue he has come across and it is presently a very “sub-optimal” situation. He tried to get the MAHA mob to be reasonable and ready to compromise (in a conspiracy marketer’s manipulative manner). “Farmers” Means said, “are really suffering and there is a perception these chemicals are needed for food production”. He admitted it was a very tough situation: “We are grappling with these very complex issues.”
Means vowed to continue to work with the administration and ensure that MAHA stays part of it. This is a sign that all is not well in Washington but he plans to be seen going down as a fighter. Calley Means’ arrogance and capacity to embellish himself is legendary. I kept noticing how he seemed to think of himself at the same level as RFK Jr in this debate, continually using the term “we” in reference to HHS activities. He claimed, for example, that “MAHA has a big seat at the table and we will continue to push this.”
Poser.
The MAHA Action Media Hub then took a turn to the Pentecostal when Daniel Pompa filed his five minute video intervention. A recent Firebreak article showed how the Pentecostals were the real backbone of the MAHA movement.
Pompa shared how discouraged people are about Trump’s glyphosate executive order. He assured the MAHA faithful in attendance that there was no gaslighting going on. In what could only be described as the best spin ever, he justified why MAHA could not pull glyphosate out of food system right away. “Getting farmers to stop using glyphosate would like taking a drug addict off drugs cold turkey.” It would be too much. Pompa feels farmers are addicted to the stuff.
Pompa then took an interesting turn to the spiritual, asking the MAHA soldiers a rhetorical question:
“Did we think for one minute that there wouldn’t be a battle. But the battle is always spiritual. Like with pharmaceuticals and vaccines, there was a battle, as now with chemical companies and pesticides, and they are trying to turn us on ourselves.”
He implored that the faithful must trust the MAHA board stating “It is not as simple as just taking a chemical away. The battle is spiritual, but we need a war cry – be strong and courageous. We are stepping into a promise that God has for us … and not let them divide us. Trust the message from the top.”
In repeating the Biblical calling: “Be strong and courageous”, I kept waiting for Pompa to exclaim “Brother Bobby knows the way to the Promised Land!”. Is it too soon?
Most of the speakers fit the MAHA mold, except perhaps Shira Boehler. She is an articulate lung cancer survivor who fought to change the guidelines so that lung scans are more commonly done. Her argument is sound - that lung cancer is the number one cause of cancer death for woman … even more than breast cancer. But I wondered why she was using this medium to tell her story, except perhaps to sell her book, but that seemed secondary for her. Maybe not for the ever opportunistic Tony Lyons, whose Skyhorse Publishing is her book’s publisher.
While Boehler was sharing heartfelt moments of her ordeal, the MAHA Action Media Hub comment section lit up. MAHAvians were claiming lung cancer was caused by wearing masks. Others said, knowingly, that scans or mammograms caused cancer. These dear angels never fail to come through.
The grift though was gaining momentum as the evening event approached its zenith, with two heavyweights in the MAHA world still to speak.
Jeff Hays was there to promote his film, the MAHA Movie. Hays used most of his allotted time to play a three-minute trailer of his new film. While he announced that it was going live that night, the scenes in the trailer were identical to a film Hays had released in 2025 under the title “Toxic Nation”. I should know as I suffered through it when I wrote an article last year. Rehashing new wine in old bottles is not an issue in a MAHA world where messages are short, emotional and simple.
The evening ended with Robert Malone telling the MAHA movement their time is now (and please buy my book … available at Tony Lyons‘ Skyhorse Publishing). Malone cited a political survey that the American people are far less divided … and 59% support MAHA. As over half of those surveyed supported reducing vaccine load, Malone reminded the faithful that these are not fringe ideas. He piled the praise on even more, saying MAHA is polling higher than support for politicians like Trump and RFK Jr (who only poll support in the low 40s). “MAHA is the majority,” Malone crowed, “and holds the power.”
Bob will do well in the coming RFK Jr administration.
From Deplatform to De Platform
What emerged from this evening of speeches from MAHA leaders is their attempt to mainstream the movement, present themselves not as a lunatic fringe but as a force that will influence the coming elections. But you don’t have to look far to find the old ways, conspiracy mongers and batshit crazy grifters at work at the heart of MAHA. As much as people in the “MAHA leadership” try to paper over the stains, the taint remains.
Russell Brand spoke at the MAHA Action Media Hub the week before. Maybe Alex Jones is free in April. The MAHA Action Media Hub is the new leadership grooming ground.
Tony Lyons perhaps said it best. “Before RFK Jr came to power, people like himself were being deplatformed. Now they are running the platform.”
The lunatics have taken over the asylum.