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April 5, 2025

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‘FOOD BABE’ VANI HARI: Don’t boo the MAHA movement. Our health and safety are bigger than bureaucrats’ egos

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I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard my friend and colleague Calley Means, co-founder of TrueMed and an adviser to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy, being booed, laughed at and shouted down at the Politico Health Care Summit this week. 

Apparently, that room full of health care lobbyists and partisan critics didn’t want to hear the truth: American health policy in its current form is an absolute and utter failure. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the largest health bureaucracy in the world, needs an overhaul and it needs to happen fast. 

The backlash Calley encountered Wednesday came just 24 hours after HHS began laying off 10,000 federal employees — including entrenched officials from agencies like the FDA, NIH, and CMS, who have presided over a stunning collapse in American health. 

Shortly after Secretary Kennedy’s announcement of the restructuring, the former FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert Califf went on his LinkedIn page and stated ‘The FDA as we’ve known it is finished.’ 

Thank goodness it’s finished. 

Decades of ineffectiveness have allowed our food and chemical corporations to inundate our food system with novel chemicals without third-party oversight or necessary safety studies.  

Decades of outdated regulatory actions have let American companies poison us with ingredients they don’t use in other countries — like artificial food dyes that are linked to hyperactivity in children and cancer in animal studies. 

Decades of poor nutritional standards have allowed infant formulas with the first ingredient — ‘corn syrup solids’ — a form of added refined sugar — to be given to newborn babies.

If our health authorities worked, we wouldn’t be the sickest developed country on Earth. We wouldn’t have exploding rates of obesity, infertility, and depression. The facts speak louder than the boos.

We need a total overhaul in how our regulatory bodies operate. We need to replace old thinking. We need new personnel who aren’t riddled with conflicts of interest. We need gold-star science that will get to the root cause of why we are in this predicament and how to solve it. 

Our government has miserably failed to protect human health and there are countless examples of that — but now with President Donald Trump and Secretary Kennedy’s bold vision to reverse chronic disease, we have a turning point in history that we’ve never had before.  

What Calley said at the summit wasn’t complicated: the people who helped create this crisis shouldn’t be the ones running the response. And yet, when he pointed out that America has ‘the sickest children in the developed world’ — and that laughing off reform in the face of that reality is disgraceful — the room turned hostile. 

He argued that Secretary Kennedy is doing exactly what voters — particularly MAHA moms like me — asked for: removing entrenched bureaucrats who labeled independent experts as quacks, punished dissent, and brushed aside soaring chronic disease rates– ignoring the fact that food is medicine. To do otherwise, as Calley put it, is ‘to tell the MAHA moms that their votes and voices are not legitimate.’ 

People voted for change. Not for minor tweaks — for structural disruption. And that’s why the MAHA moms are done being laughed at. I understand the outrage. But I also understand what’s at stake. 

If our health authorities worked, we wouldn’t be the sickest developed country on Earth. We wouldn’t have exploding rates of obesity, infertility, and depression. The facts speak louder than the boos.

And let’s be clear: this isn’t the first time reform has made the elite uncomfortable. Calley is a warrior like I’ve never seen before. He is doing what real reformers always do — facing down institutions that protect themselves at all costs. And he has an army of MAHA moms behind him. 

I’m one of them. As a longtime food activist and founder of the Food Babe movement, I’ve spent over a decade challenging the very same health establishment now being reformed. I’ve spoken directly with the MAHA moms in and and outside the White House driving this effort — women who’ve watched their kids suffer from chronic illness, only to be gaslit by the very agencies meant to protect them. 

These aren’t fringe voices. They’re citizens demanding accountability, transparency, and a return to common sense in public health. I’m proud to stand with them. 

I’ve traveled all over the country with Calley, in a grassroots effort to fix what the food industry has done to us — testifying in various states that are looking to reform antiquated policies that allow harmful chemicals in our food and keep Americans sick. 

This moment isn’t about optics. It’s about outcomes — whether American children are healthier in five years. Whether families feel seen and served by public health institutions. Whether the government finally begins to prioritize prevention over pharmaceutical profits. 

Calley should not apologize for prioritizing America’s health over bureaucratic egos. He shouldn’t back down because insiders are uncomfortable. He is part of a team building a leaner, more transparent and reputable HHS. And if telling that truth gets him booed again, I have a feeling he’ll take the mic every time. 

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS

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Politics

Here’s what Trump is really up to with high-stakes tariff gambit

Politics 5 Mins Read
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Let us be honest: When most people hear ‘tariffs,’ they think about price hikes and trade wars. But the Trump administration’s latest tariff rollout is not merely a knee-jerk protectionist move—it is part of a far broader strategy.

What is actually in play here is a high-stakes effort to build up leverage and resources to manage America’s debt, reset its industrial base, and renegotiate its standing in the global order.

And it all begins with a problem most people have not been told enough about.

In 2025, the U.S. government must refinance $9.2 trillion in maturing debt. Some $6.5 trillion of that comes due by June. That is not a typo—that is a debt wall the size of a small continent.

Now, here is the math: According to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, each basis-point (one one-hundredth of a percent) drop in interest rates saves the government roughly $1 billion per year. Since the announcement of tariffs on April 2, 10-year Treasury yields have fallen from 4.2 percent to 3.9 percent—a 30 basis point drop. If that holds, it translates to $30 billion in savings.

So, keeping yields low is not just sound policy—it is a fiscal necessity.

But we are in a difficult environment. Inflation has not fully cooled, and the Federal Reserve remains wary of cutting rates too quickly. So the question becomes: How does one bring yields down without the Fed’s help?

Here is where the strategy becomes interesting.

By introducing sweeping tariffs, the administration is creating precisely the kind of economic uncertainty that drives investors toward safer assets such as long-term U.S. Treasuries. When markets are spooked, capital exits risk and equity assets (as we see with the stock market collapse) and piles into safe assets, primarily the 10-year U.S. treasury bond. That demand pushes yields lower.

It is a counter-intuitive move, but a calculated one. Some have called it a ‘detox’ for the overheated financial system. And it appears to be working.

However, even cheaper debt does not solve everything. The deficit remains massive—and that is where spending cuts come in.

Backed by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and Elon Musk, the administration is reportedly targeting $4 billion in daily spending cuts. If their recommendations translate to cuts and get ratified by Congress, that could amount to a trillion dollars off the deficit by late 2025.

At this point, we have two pillars: lower borrowing costs and tighter spending. But there remains a third—and arguably most important—pillar: growth.

Tariffs serve as the ignition switch. By making imports more expensive, they create space for American producers to step back in. The objective is not to punish trade partners—it is to make domestic industry viable again, even if only long enough to rebuild critical capacity.

Yes, prices will rise. But the administration is fully aware of that. In fact, it is front-loading the pain now, hoping to deliver visible job growth and factory activity before the November 2026 midterm elections.

In the meantime, tariffs themselves will generate revenue—an estimated $700 billion or more in the first year. That creates more fiscal room for the administration to enable tax cuts and keep spending on Social Security, Medicaid and other programs.

Where the picture becomes even more interesting is on the geopolitical front.

These tariffs do not exist in a vacuum. They are being deployed alongside a deliberate reshaping of global alliances. The U.S. is quietly distancing itself from NATO, recalibrating ties with Europe, and opening previously frozen diplomatic channels with the Gulf nations and Russia.

Why? Because the post-Cold War trade order no longer serves U.S. interests. It enabled deficits, offshoring, and strategic dependency. Now, tariffs become leverage. Allies who align with U.S. priorities receive relief; others face higher costs.

China, naturally, is the central player. For years, economists have argued that its artificially weak currency and industrial overcapacity have distorted global trade. Tariffs are one way to force a reckoning—and potentially, a revaluation of the yuan.

Other countries will not be spared. Europe could be asked for terms on Ukraine. India may be pressured for deep tariff cuts. Canada and Mexico will likely face demands related to fentanyl and border enforcement.

This is not random. It is trade policy as a means to force countries to the negotiating table.

Domestically, the political logic is equally clear. The sectors most likely to benefit—steel, automobiles, textiles—are concentrated in battleground states. The administration is betting that visible wins in those regions will outweigh short-term pain in sectors dependent on cheap imports.

There are serious risks here. If inflation returns or if the reshoring bet fails, the blowback could be severe. But make no mistake: This is not improvisation. It is disruption by design.

Whether one agrees with it or not, this is one of the most ambitious fiscal and industrial resets in a generation.

The only question that remains is—will it work?

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS

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