The Truth About Big Pharma and America's Health Decline | Brigid Rasmussen DSH #1288

Speaker 1 One, yes, mental health is at an all-time low, but it's also just increase of diagnosing teenagers when they have depression or anxiety. It's like that's a, that's often a very situational thing.

Speaker 1 Like, why are we putting kids in a box and then prescribing them something that they're then learning to externalize their ability to self-regulate and self-soothe and be resilient?

Speaker 2 Okay, guys, got Bridget here, COO of Maha Alliance and Maha Action. A lot going on in your world.
Thanks for coming on.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I'm sure you're all over the place lately.

Speaker 1 Yep, exciting times. DC a lot, Austin, Texas, here in Vegas, LA, all over the place.
Nice.

Speaker 2 How long you've been with Bobby and the movement?

Speaker 1 So I started working with Bobby in April of 2023 when he announced that he was running for president.

Speaker 1 And, you know, it was a small group of us figuring out how to set up a campaign website and file paperwork with the FEC, that kind of thing.

Speaker 1 And then his big announcement speech in Boston, which really is when things really took off.

Speaker 1 And then shortly after he announced his independent presidential run in Philadelphia, I believe October 2023, he asked me to be his chief of staff and sort of take a more, more of a leadership role on his campaign,

Speaker 1 which was incredible. So yes, April 2023.

Speaker 1 started working with Bobby directly. Yeah.

Speaker 2 You guys had an uphill battle from there.

Speaker 1 Definitely. It was huge.
And it was, it was more and more uphill the farther we got in terms of things like ballot access.

Speaker 1 You know, for independent candidates, you don't just automatically get on the ballot. You have to collect a certain amount of signatures in each state.

Speaker 1 It's a unique requirement in each state from, you know, how big the paper size of the petition has to be to the color ink that's used.

Speaker 2 Wow, the color of the ink matters.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
And they, the DNC sued us, I want to say a dozen or more times

Speaker 1 for things like the starting collecting signatures before you have a vice president announced or

Speaker 1 where, you know, districts for collecting signatures, zip codes. You know, you have to, in New York, for example, you have to have a certain amount in each borough.
It's crazy. So,

Speaker 1 you know, it was an uphill battle, but it was also such an incredible one.

Speaker 1 You know, our grassroots support was really the backbone of the movement. By the end of the campaign, we had 100,000 plus active volunteers

Speaker 1 out in crazy weather conditions, collecting signatures, tabling at parades.

Speaker 1 I was driving through the middle of nowhere, Colorado once on a Saturday afternoon, and there was this group of maybe a dozen volunteers holding a banner over a freeway that said RFK for president.

Speaker 1 So, you know, while we had those hurdles of being an independent campaign, we had this passion and fiery movement like never seen before.

Speaker 1 And that same movement is now, you know, getting behind Maha-related legislation and helping us on the ground

Speaker 1 continue to get the word out and grow. So yeah, it was a revolutionary movement.

Speaker 2 It was the first movement I've seen in politics that incorporated health.

Speaker 1 Yeah, definitely. I think it was.
And it's incredibly unifying.

Speaker 1 You know, you see Bobby supporters, many apolitical, not engaged in politics, people who have, you know, felt lied to by our regulatory agencies time and time again.

Speaker 1 You see them, you know, start to pay attention. And then you see that group of people, you know, aligned now with MAGA.
And we've been going to these Republican conventions all over the country.

Speaker 1 And the MAGA crowd is so excited about Maha. I mean,

Speaker 1 it's a new arm of MAGA, but it's also, you know, a nonpartisan movement that we've seen be incredibly unifying. And it's what's necessary.
You know, it's not. one side or the other.

Speaker 1 It's just what we need to do. Our health is at an all-time low.
And,

Speaker 1 you know, it's a threat to our national security. 77% of young people aren't eligible to join the military.
You know, so that leaves 23%.

Speaker 1 Out of that 23%, how many do you think actually want to join the military? It's a huge threat to our national security.

Speaker 2 So yeah, I'd be curious how the numbers are if they're dwindling the number of people in the military.

Speaker 1 Right. I mean, I think that they are.

Speaker 1 And I think that we're seeing, you know, rising rates of PTSD in veterans and veteran health is a huge issue too.

Speaker 1 So we've been working with a couple of veteran health nonprofit organizations on some big, you know, Maha veteran initiatives,

Speaker 1 both on the legislative side of things, you know, getting more coverage for veterans,

Speaker 1 but also things like the food that they're serving in the military. That's a huge problem.
Yeah, I bet it's terrible food. Yeah.
So many preservatives and artificial dyes, chemicals, you know,

Speaker 1 we've just got to do better and we've got to. help the people that are helping us or serving our country, you know, thrive.
And we're not.

Speaker 2 Not at all. I've had had a lot of veterans on the show.
And they told me they can't even use peptides or TRT.

Speaker 2 And as a as a fighter, you want high testosterone, you want to be healthy. Right.
And you can't even supplement with stuff like that.

Speaker 1 Right. It's, it's crazy.
Yeah. And the, you know, forcing people in the military to get the vaccine over COVID and

Speaker 1 all of that. It's, it's like, why, again, why are the people that are serving our country, you know, put last and not given choice and things like that? It's just crazy.

Speaker 2 Yeah. The vaccine decision was, I feel like a lot of people quit because of that one.

Speaker 1 Yeah, definitely, definitely. I mean, it's like you choose between potentially harming your own body or serving your country.
It's crazy. I mean, so

Speaker 1 I'm excited to see this now take a national stage. You know, people are starting to talk about these things.

Speaker 1 People are starting to talk about this, this big pharma forever customer model where we're poisoning our kids.

Speaker 1 And then, and then big pharma and big corporations are profiting off our kids being sick and our adults being sick and our veterans being sick.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, the prescription model, right? I think the average veteran's on over five prescriptions.

Speaker 1 It's, yeah, something like that. It's crazy.

Speaker 1 You know, kids are being prescribed SSRIs at a crazy rate too. Adults are on tons and tons of prescription medications.
It's like, why is that the norm?

Speaker 1 You know, why is it that when a kid goes into their pediatrician for a checkup and they say, oh, I'm feeling kind of depressed or, you know, the teacher says that they're, you know, off the walls, they can't focus.

Speaker 1 Why is the first thing to put somebody on Adderall or Lexapro or things like that that are just not safe for kids? Right. It's then, you know, there we, there you have it, a forever customer.

Speaker 2 When I was in college at Rutgers, Adderall was so easy to get. Yeah.
Like everyone in my hall had it.

Speaker 1 It's easier to get than spinach.

Speaker 1 I went to Pepperdine University, which is pretty conservative and a dry campus and all of that. And it was still, I mean, everywhere.
It was everywhere.

Speaker 1 It's a big problem with college college athletes, too. They're getting Adderall prescriptions and then they're allowed to take Adderall to increase their performance.

Speaker 1 It's across the board, a huge issue. It's the accessibility of these things, antidepressants, stimulants, you name it.

Speaker 1 We've got to think about root causes. And, you know, when a kid is having trouble in school, why not look at what they're eating or how much exercise they're getting?

Speaker 1 Why is it, okay, let's put them on an an addictive pill that they're going to have to be on forever and has crazy side effects that probably more than we even realize. Yep.

Speaker 2 Is Maha working on any legislator to fight against that?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think the biggest thing that we're focused on is transparency. And the biggest thing Bobby is focused on is transparency of our regulatory agencies and increasing regulations to

Speaker 1 increase informed choice. It's not taking away pharmaceutical companies.
It's not even taking away vaccines or drugs or junk food.

Speaker 1 It's just giving people more resources and educating them on what they're putting in their bodies, what they're put

Speaker 1 in their kids' bodies.

Speaker 1 So there's a bill right now that's passing through committees in New York that requires doctors to lay out the potentially harmful side effects of vaccines 48 hours before the vaccine's administered.

Speaker 1 Because what we see now is parents go into doctors' offices and it's not even a question of whether or not you get the vaccine or not. They're not even being presented the

Speaker 1 mile-long packet of side effects of vaccines. So things like that that are like, you know, the vaccine is still available should you want to get it, but at least you have 48 hours to learn the risks.

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 there's also, we're actually tomorrow at the Capitol in Arizona, there's a bill that's being

Speaker 1 put through that would ban chemical additives from school lunch programs in Arizona. You know, 30 to 100%

Speaker 1 of,

Speaker 1 sorry, 30 million kids are on,

Speaker 1 are, you know, have school lunches as 30 to 100% of their calories that they consume.

Speaker 1 So if we start with school lunches, you know, what kids are eating when they're at school, which like I said, is a lot of what they're eating, especially in

Speaker 1 communities where

Speaker 1 that's the only resources they have is public school lunches. I think we're going to see a huge improvement in childhood health and childhood chronic disease because

Speaker 1 we can't have a strong nation when our kids are eating crap for lunch every day, when they're having lunchables and Gatorade and candy and sodas. It's, yeah.

Speaker 2 I still have nightmares about my school lunch.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Like it was disgusting.
What was it?

Speaker 2 It was like french fries, old pizza,

Speaker 2 salad that was probably like processed. And I don't even know.
It wasn't fresh salad, I could tell you that. Right.

Speaker 2 And the lowest quality meat the lowest quality ingredients yeah it doesn't even look like meat no it doesn't look like meat and I grew up upper middle class too so it's not like we didn't have the resources to afford a decent meal right but it was still just subsidized by the state I guess and we find the cheapest ingredients yeah it's crazy and then they're mass producing but then you go and visit schools and the trash can is just filled with food that kids don't want to eat.

Speaker 1 It's not even appetizing to them.

Speaker 1 You know, it's yeah, it's plastic. It looks and same, it's, it's the the same thing with hospitals.

Speaker 1 People come out of open heart surgery and they're giving Mountain Dew and these like plastic looking top-tart things.

Speaker 1 It blows my mind. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 There's vending machines in hospitals, solo vending machines, candy vending machines. Right.

Speaker 1 Right. Like, how is that allowed? I know.

Speaker 1 And it's like, you know, we need to something that we're focused on with Maha is rather than just telling people what not to eat, it's like giving them things that they can eat and can cook and are actually accessible.

Speaker 1 I think there's this issue where where

Speaker 1 people,

Speaker 1 people get overwhelmed. They're pretty soon they're like, okay, well, what can I eat? You're telling me not to have seed oils, you know, vegetable, canola oil that's like in everything almost.

Speaker 1 You're telling me not to have food dyes. You're telling me not to have soda or McDonald's, but for a lot of people, that's all that they have.

Speaker 1 And then it kind of just is a is a huge turn off for these people and they stop paying attention and it's almost this elitist thing.

Speaker 1 So we need to, you know, rather than just taking away processed frozen meals, it's like, let's provide alternatives. They might not be perfect, but they're better, you know?

Speaker 2 So you could find the right things for the right price, you know?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I don't think you have to buy organic if you can't afford it.

Speaker 1 Right, right. And that's the other, the organic label, you know, that

Speaker 1 foreign companies are importing organic produce and they're essentially paying for the sticker. And it's not actually organic.
There's no oversight. Wow.

Speaker 1 It's the same thing with supplements that are coming in from overseas. And what that's doing is one, poisoning us.

Speaker 1 And two, it's driving American small businesses, small farms completely out of business because they're not able to mass produce at that rate.

Speaker 2 Dang, I didn't know that. So the label doesn't mean what it used to.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, not always.

Speaker 1 I mean, I think there's organic farmers here that are incredible and are struggling because they don't have the subsidies that these massive, massive, you know, slaughterhouses, for example, and big farms have.

Speaker 1 So, yeah, I think we need to put America first. We need to put American businesses first.
We need to put American farms first.

Speaker 1 That's the only way we can make our economy healthy again, make our kids healthy again.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's, it's, why are we, you know, prioritizing these foreign companies over our own companies and ultimately foreign people over our own people? So

Speaker 2 have you seen the farmland trying to buy up the farmland?

Speaker 1 Yeah, yes. It's crazy.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's concerning.

Speaker 1 It's so concerning. Yeah.
And then, yeah, again, they're not prioritizing the health of America, the American consumer, you know, the same way that a small farmer would.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean, last thing I heard was they own the second most farmland in America.

Speaker 1 Yeah. China.
Yeah. I believe that's

Speaker 1 that's crazy. It's crazy.
And Bill Gates is first. Right.

Speaker 1 And who knows what he's up to? I know. That's a whole problem in itself.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So, yeah, I think ultimately we've, we've got to think about our American kids and adults that are, you know,

Speaker 1 you hear all the time from Bobby and others, there's nothing more profitable than a sick child.

Speaker 1 And we have to look at the source. We have to look at how food has grown.
You know, this pesticide issue is huge right now.

Speaker 1 Iowa has one of the highest rates of cancer and also one of the highest rates of pesticide use on their crops. Every year,

Speaker 1 6 billion pounds or something of glyphosate related, you know, pesticides, for example, glyphosate are sprayed on our, on our crops that end up being our produce that kids and grown-ups are eating.

Speaker 2 So there's a direct correlation.

Speaker 1 Yeah. That's concerning.
I believe there is. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 The pesticide stuff is nuts because they haven't found anything to combat that yet, right?

Speaker 1 Exactly. And they're in Iowa right now, there's a bill that they're trying to push through that would grant immunity, legal immunity, essentially, for pesticide companies.

Speaker 1 Wow. Yeah.
And that's going on. They actually just passed this same bill in Georgia.
So we're fighting that too. Are they getting those through?

Speaker 1 It's, they're essentially saying if they have, you know, one stamp of approval once, that that should be, they should have legal protection because they'll go bankrupt if they get sued, which is just insane.

Speaker 1 It's like, well, you should go bankrupt. Like you should, you know, so people ask all the time, they're like,

Speaker 1 like.

Speaker 1 reporters will ask me what you know what do you have to say to big companies that are really worried about going out of business and i'm like we they'd have nothing to worry about if as long as they're not knowingly harming the american people that's the key word knowingly right yeah knowingly and yeah they shouldn't have anything to worry about bobby is not going to make junk food illegal you know he's not going to wipe away pharma you know he hasn't yet he's not going to he's just going to ensure that people know what they're putting in their bodies and big companies aren't profiting off people being sicker and sicker yeah yeah was the make people healthy again always the main selling point from the start or did that kind of come along later you know it's it's funny because I had never heard make America healthy again.

Speaker 1 We we played around with like make earth great again on the campaign, which people really liked.

Speaker 1 But it wasn't until August 23rd, 2024, I'll never forget Bobby joined President Trump on stage in Phoenix.

Speaker 1 and said, don't you want a president that's going to make America healthy again?

Speaker 1 And by the end of the day, people were selling merch. People set up websites.
Like it really took off.

Speaker 1 And now I can't imagine Maha not being something that we say every day.

Speaker 1 It's so recognizable. You know, I wear my hats at the airport and things like that.
And everybody's like, I love Maha, you know, from both sides of the aisle.

Speaker 1 We've been at Republican conventions, like I mentioned. We've been

Speaker 1 at, we were at Expo West in LA with a lot of kind of more liberal leaning people

Speaker 1 and companies. And everybody was coming up to us, wanting a hat, wanting to get involved, wanting to attach their brand to Maha in some way.

Speaker 1 You know, it's gotten a huge audience and it was one of those things that nobody could have, could have planned. Bobby just caught up and said it, which was incredible.
That's beautiful.

Speaker 2 You also got Callie Means and Vanny Hari just rocking with you guys.

Speaker 1 Totally rocking. I mean, I think that

Speaker 1 they have been so instrumental in this movement in so many ways for so many years, but they really brought a whole new audience to Maha and to Bobby.

Speaker 1 um and to president trump too you know this uh people

Speaker 1 you know we call them the granola moms, but it's more than that.

Speaker 1 They're thinking about food and Callie and Vonnie and people like that. They're very, they're very knowledgeable on food ingredients and what needs to change, legislation, all of that.

Speaker 1 They bring people in and then people start listening to Bobby or Dell Big Tree, our CEO. And pretty soon they're learning more and more about these

Speaker 1 this sort of profit model that, you know, for pharma and vaccines and things like that. So I think it's brought a whole new wave of of people into this and

Speaker 1 ultimately has made it more mainstream.

Speaker 2 I thought it was a brilliant marketing strategy, partnering with those food influencers because they get a ton of views on social media. Totally.
Like I see them every day on my feed. Yeah.

Speaker 2 They're getting hundreds of millions of views. So that was and a great community too.

Speaker 1 Totally, a huge community and one that's so passionate. You know, they

Speaker 1 will

Speaker 1 put a set aside 40 hours a week to go stand on the side of the road with a sign that's, you know, did you know that X, Y, and Z is in your kids' lunches? It's, it's incredible.

Speaker 1 People are really starting to wake up and learn. And I think our next task is reaching people in rural areas and food deserts that, that aren't being heard

Speaker 1 and not being educated. And even if they are being educated,

Speaker 1 there's this whole like, well, then what do I eat? Like I said, like we have to give people alternatives. We have to empower people.
We have to help people restore ownership of their own health.

Speaker 1 You know, there's some places where you go and it's everybody just looks unhealthy. Everybody lives an unhealthy lifestyle.
Like there's no emphasis on nutrition or fitness. Absolutely.

Speaker 1 To really move the needle in the time that we have,

Speaker 1 we have to reach those people too. Yeah.

Speaker 2 When I saw Callie and Vanny testifying at Congress, I was like, oh my gosh, times are changing. Like these influencers really have a voice these days.
I've never seen that before.

Speaker 1 Right. Right.
Like, when did influencers go and, you know, do Senate hearings? Senator Ron Johnson has been a huge ally and has put those together. And yeah, it's, it's,

Speaker 1 and they really represent the people. Like, people look up to people like Callie and Vonnie and Bobby and Dell.
And

Speaker 1 yeah, I think it's huge to have, to have those voices,

Speaker 1 both on the government side of things and just from an educational standpoint.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah, the Kellogg's petition.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 How many signatures did that thing get?

Speaker 1 I think it ended up with like 300,000 signatures that they hand-delivered to the Kellogg's headquarters, freezing cold, middle of nowhere, Michigan. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And then, you know, what, six weeks later, the FDA announces it's spanning red food, red number six or red number five or something like that.

Speaker 1 It's that shows us the power of this kind of grassroots lobbying, grassroots legislative advocacy. I mean, it really is so loud when people, people like that rally together.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Beautiful.
And demand change.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And then the heavy metals inside of the lunchables, Lunchables.
That was a big deal. I'm not sure if they changed their ingredients yet.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Lunchables is a big one because, I mean, and Lunchables is similar to others where it's totally marketed toward kids.
You know, they have like toys in there. It's like the bright colors.

Speaker 1 It's like food is not supposed to look like Play-Doh. It reminds me of like those little Play-Dohs.
You know, the kids, like Play-Doh toys that are like, oh, make a sandwich.

Speaker 1 Like, it's like a restaurant. model.
That's literally what Lunchables reminds me of, just plastic. I used to eat it.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Oh, same. Yeah.
Phenomenal.

Speaker 1 phenomenal it used to taste amazing i probably would hate it now yeah right right it's and it's like once you

Speaker 1 once you know what's in things like that you're thinking of it and we're seeing people so much more conscious of what they're putting in their bodies now all it takes is a 30 second ad or one minute ad two minute ad whatever um on what's really in these foods and then all of a sudden and that's the first step is just making people aware of it yep um so yeah i probably wouldn't like it anymore either but i used to love lunchables i used to love things like that What was your go-to lunchable?

Speaker 1 I think I liked the nacho one the most. The nacho one.

Speaker 2 I like the sandwich one.

Speaker 1 Oh, the sandwich one was fun. That was fire.
I always liked building things. So yeah, I did like the sandwich.

Speaker 2 Yeah, the cheese was so good.

Speaker 1 Yeah. It's crazy.
I mean, it's, it's,

Speaker 1 it's so attractive to kids and delicious. And then they don't want to eat vegetables or anything like that.

Speaker 2 And did you see the Lunch Lee launch with Mr. Beast and Logan Paul? No.

Speaker 1 Oh, you didn't see that?

Speaker 2 No, I haven't. Oh, they made like a Lunchables competitor.

Speaker 1 Oh, really? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Oh, wow. But they're not using the best ingredients.

Speaker 1 So yeah, it's a little concerning. We'll have to audit that.
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 Do you guys do that? Do you do like audits?

Speaker 1 Not yet, but I think eventually that would be a really cool

Speaker 1 kind of series. We've talked about that.

Speaker 1 We're also talking about building a Maha certification directory.

Speaker 1 So, you know, there's, there's several other platforms that have things like, okay, you know, find, find the best, what's the best water bottle at the gas station. You know, you scan the

Speaker 1 water bottle. Yeah, that one.

Speaker 1 And then there's several others that do very specific things, but there's not one that's kind of all-encompassing. Right.

Speaker 1 So we're thinking about a Maha certified program, which would require first defining what counts as Maha certified and what doesn't, taking into account, you know, where things are grown.

Speaker 1 Like just because it's organic doesn't mean it's good. That's one example.
You know, it goes so deep. So it'll be, you know, a a big long-term project, but also Maha certified provider.

Speaker 1 So, you know, you just move to a new city and you want to find a good functional medicine doctor or an integrative health coach or a chiropractor or anything like that, you just put in your zip code and get tons of referrals.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 But in the meantime, I think a sort of Maha audit series would be really fun. I mean, we've done sort of things like that here and there, but,

Speaker 1 you know, Andvoni and Callie do such a great job of that too. Alex Clark as well.
Yeah. She's, she's great.

Speaker 2 Yeah, they're all great. I like this one app called Seed Oil Scout.

Speaker 1 That's a great one. Yeah, I love that one.

Speaker 2 I use that all the time. And now they're doing like consumer goods, so they'll have a sticker if it's seed oil-free.

Speaker 1 Oh, wow. Okay.
I didn't know they were doing a sticker now.

Speaker 2 Yeah, they just announced that.

Speaker 1 Okay, amazing.

Speaker 2 Because there's a learning curve when you're getting into this. So, like, oh, is this actually healthy or not? Right.
There's so many different ingredients.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And it's overwhelming.
And people don't have time. Like, health, I think, is, is really comes down to scheduling and

Speaker 1 finding time to learn of these things. You know, that's why people get so overwhelmed they're like okay well you're telling me i can't have this i can't have that there's like 10 different stickers

Speaker 1 you know people don't have time to look over every ingredient list and that's where that's where we need to hold these these big food companies accountable like they need to

Speaker 1 if they're saying that something's healthy and they're marketing it to kids and they're

Speaker 1 essentially knowingly hiding things like natural flavors is a great one right people see natural flavors and they're like oh natural flavors that's good okay moving on don't have time to read between the lines there's sometimes like a hundred different chemical additives that go into creating a natural flavor like it's not it's not natural you know and and

Speaker 1 so anything that's things like that it's like why are we allowed to call it you know using these blanket statements yeah healthy organic or you know um heart healthy is another big chariot yeah exactly They don't tell you about the glyphosate, but they'll say it's heart healthy.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
So I think it's, it's all about transparency and education and really empowering people

Speaker 1 to know kind of what to look out for. I mean, I always say if you can't pronounce it, it's probably not good.

Speaker 2 Agreed. Yeah.
That's a good rule of thumb. Yeah.
Cause these labels are so misleading. I just found out about grass fed.
It just means they were fed grass once. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Like their whole life, they could have been fed corn, GMO corn, but if they got fed grass once, it's considered grass-fed.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 And it doesn't mean that they're free range like they can be totally you know kept inside of a cage their whole life which is there's so many terms for the eggs now i remember when i was a kid there wasn't any terms and now there's like 40 different terms it's crazy yeah and so we have to and i think that's where maha comes in and other organizations like maha like while bobby and and his team in government are cleaning up these regulatory agencies you know creating regulations so that companies are have to be be held accountable

Speaker 1 and have to you know increase transparency on their products it's our job to educate people in the meantime because we can move a lot quicker in a lot of ways yeah um just with getting on the ground and and talking to people and and also hearing from them like i learn from people every single day what their individual hurdles are you know with school lunches i just talked to this woman in dallas whose kids go to a private school in a really nice area and she and part of their program is the parents volunteer to help the kids, you know, use their meal card to check out or whatever.

Speaker 1 And they're after second grade, the parents are not allowed to encourage the kids to put back a bag of chips and grab something differently. Really?

Speaker 1 Like, they can fill their tray with Mountain Dew and Starburst, and the parents are not allowed to say anything.

Speaker 1 That's like one tiny example of like, you know, and that's in a very affluent private school.

Speaker 1 And she's seeing more and more kids are, you know, falling asleep in class in the afternoon they're misbehaving and then they're putting put on adder all right away no like okay how about it's like come on it's captain obvious look at what the kids eating for lunch yeah so they tried putting me on that in fourth grade yeah and looking back at it now is definitely diet issue yeah totally you know 100 right yeah i was eating candy i was eating chips i was drinking sodas You know, as a kid, that can just make you go crazy, I guess.

Speaker 1 Right. I mean, your blood sugar, I'm not like an expert in this stuff, but your blood sugar is like, and then you crash.
There's no sustainable source of energy.

Speaker 1 And then your, your body's growing and you need more and more nutrition and you're just getting less and less. And it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's like the easy way out.
And

Speaker 1 we're not, and I think teachers and parents aren't thinking about the long-term effects of being on something like Adderall or, you know, Ritalin or Bivance or any of those drugs that are totally,

Speaker 1 I mean, huge chemical dependency. Yep.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I'm curious about the censorship stuff.
Are you guys still dealing with that? Because I've had a ton of like health videos get taken down or shadow banned.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, it's definitely been better lately, I'd say.

Speaker 1 For there was a period of time during Bobby's campaign where every time somebody reposted this Who Is Bobby Kennedy documentary, it got taken down. for violating community standards.

Speaker 1 This was mostly on

Speaker 1 meta, violating community standards, sexual and violent content you know misinformation that was the biggest one like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds um i think now it's gotten a little better i mean our ad account on meta still gets taken down like every other week which is insane you can still with part of the migration

Speaker 1 yeah yep which is funny um x was the only platform that has maintained its integrity um

Speaker 1 pretty much but yeah meta is still i i mean i noticed like i don't have a huge following but i I noticed when I post something about Bobby, it's not seen as much.

Speaker 1 And then you see people, people's posts getting, it's like false information, CY, you know, those sort of things.

Speaker 2 Yeah, the fact check.

Speaker 1 Yeah, the fact check.

Speaker 2 They just removed that, though, I think, on Meta.

Speaker 1 They did? Okay. Yeah, a couple weeks ago.
I haven't seen it in a while.

Speaker 2 Thankfully, but because I used to get hit with that one too.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 2 But with the photo stuff, it's nuts because they definitely have some AI. If they see someone's face, they shadow ban it.
Because when I do anything with Trump or Trump Jr., Same thing. Right.

Speaker 2 I'm sure if I did one with Bobby, it'd be the same.

Speaker 1 That's so interesting. I wonder if you did a picture of like the back of him, if it would still the back.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that'd be interesting.

Speaker 2 But yeah, now whenever I post clips about Trump or Bobby, I don't post their face because I know it's going to get way less views.

Speaker 1 Wow. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Still now. It's still, wow.

Speaker 2 Well, I don't know because Duck's part of the team now. I don't know if they changed it, but right.

Speaker 1 I haven't really should.

Speaker 2 They should, yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, it really affects like there's still people today that didn't know that Bobby was running for president.

Speaker 1 I mean, fewer and fewer, but because people go to social media for information and when they can't find anything on someone or it's deemed as misinformation, taken down, like they're not getting the same, it's just totally, it's, I mean, I would argue, like

Speaker 1 it's disruptive to an election, you know,

Speaker 1 media censorship is the same. It's disruptive.

Speaker 2 And you were getting hit with the traditional media too. They would have let him debate.
Yeah. I think if he debated, he would have left a really good impression.
I completely agree. Against Kamala.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think so too. I mean, back in the first, the Trump-Biden debate, they wouldn't let him on.

Speaker 1 CNN actually changed their standards, their criteria for allowing somebody in a debate that was, I mean, directly

Speaker 1 related to Bobby. There was, it was like, okay, you have to be polling at above 15% in the last six weeks, I'm six weeks or four weeks or something like that.

Speaker 1 But the reliable polls polls do not include harvard harris and bobby had 16 or 17 18 wow they singled the one out he yeah and cnn cites harvard harris all of the time wow so either they're trying to keep somebody off a debate stage or they are knowingly lying or using a a non-reliable polling method to to their viewers i think all the polls

Speaker 1 i think all the polls would be us to be honest yeah like if you look at them they're never accurate totally totally and i think a big part of that too, and you know, this is a guess leading up to the election, it looked way closer than it actually was, like way closer.

Speaker 2 She was leading in some of them.

Speaker 1 Right. And so everybody's kind of, you know, we're feeling good about it, but we're also like, oh man, this is really neck and neck.

Speaker 1 I think a lot of people, when they get called, like, they, they didn't want to say that they were voting for Trump. There was still this sort of like

Speaker 1 weird feeling with saying it. So we actually put out an ad that was like, what happens at the voting booth stays in the voting booth.
Now you want to vote for Trump. Yeah.
That's the moment.

Speaker 2 Yeah, there is some shame.

Speaker 1 Right. Totally.
Yeah. Yeah.
So I just wonder, like, you know, Bobby was polling like 20%

Speaker 1 at one point, what that would number, what that number would look like. One, if he wasn't censored so much.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And two, um, if the polls were somehow more accurate.

Speaker 2 Wow. 20%'s insane.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Like a lot of the polling companies, they call and they wouldn't even list Bobby.
Wow. As, as, okay, they're like, if the election were held today, would you vote for Biden or Trump?

Speaker 1 Like we have recordings people would record when they would get these calls.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 they would say, or other, and it would require the person actually saying Bobby's name in some of them.

Speaker 1 Or it would say, you know, Trump, Biden, and then it would go, you would have to say other, and then it would give you a whole nother list, like Jill Stein, et cetera. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So I think, yeah, the. the methodology is also a huge problem.

Speaker 2 I'm also not a fan of how much money you need to run for presidency. You need nine figures at least.

Speaker 1 It's crazy. I can't believe it.

Speaker 2 Like over 100 million, then that's on the low end.

Speaker 2 There's been billionaires that have lost like tons of money.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 And that's just to even run for president. Right.

Speaker 1 It's, it's crazy. It's like we should be amplifying these people that have, you know, worked in their local and state legislatures for a while.
Like they don't have a ton of money. Yeah.

Speaker 2 That's why anyone independent never makes a dent even, not even one, two percent.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And the ballot access stuff, it's like

Speaker 1 huge huge um financial commitment as well just in terms of the legal

Speaker 1 on the legal side of things and then you know just even figuring out the requirements um yeah reaching out to every single secretary of state um

Speaker 1 having a team on the ground actually getting the signatures you know running that um organizing the petition papers it was It was crazy the hurdles, but I mean, we, it just speaks to the passion and the commitment of this movement.

Speaker 1 and people you would think was their full-time job yeah yeah you guys had to have your own debate that's the point

Speaker 1 yeah which was awesome i mean that was really cool we actually planned that with 48 hours until the debate really yeah we had gone back and forth on on doing it or not and you know we were still really trying to push and get bobby on the on the cnn stage um

Speaker 1 and we pulled that off it was a logistical i mean production beast just you know start stopping i'm not a producer but our team was i mean they were they were so on it and i think it came out i think we had 11 million views 11 million views on x alone yeah it looks super legit high quality thank you yeah it was fun yeah he crushed it yeah it was amazing i mean we were

Speaker 1 watching that you were like how could you not let this guy speak or you know cover him on the news or why are you calling everything he's saying misinformation and silencing his supporters and yeah yeah yeah when you see liberals calling trump a threat to democracy what goes through your head?

Speaker 1 I just think it's hilarious because

Speaker 1 the DNC sued,

Speaker 1 tried to sue Bobby so many times for, for things like, you know, the petition paper being incorrect or starting to collect signatures a day early. Or in one case, the pages.

Speaker 1 of signatures were folded, things like that. They, you know, allocated so much money to just keeping Bobby off the ballot.
They did the same thing with Trump in Colorado.

Speaker 1 You know, it's totally corrupt. It's totally anti-democracy democracy.
It's like, if your one strategy to win is just keeping everybody else off of the ballot,

Speaker 1 how is that a democracy? So I just think, I think, I think it's hilarious.

Speaker 2 And the whole way Kamala got just straight to the top, that doesn't seem democratic to me. Right.

Speaker 1 Right. Not a single primary vote.
I mean, it's crazy. And even though Bobby was pulling more votes from Trump than Harris, we never got a single challenge from the right.
Not a single one.

Speaker 2 Really? Yeah. There was no like adversaries or nope.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it was all,

Speaker 1 I mean, it was all coming from the left. And,

Speaker 1 you know, Trump and Bobby coming together, it's like they had so much that they agreed on. Um,

Speaker 1 yeah, it was a really, really beautiful alliance.

Speaker 2 Be your own people sometimes.

Speaker 1 Yeah, definitely. Dang.

Speaker 2 Was that a big change for you? Or were you conservative growing up? Or what's the background there?

Speaker 1 Yeah. So I grew up in San Francisco with the most liberal

Speaker 1 classmate dynamic you can imagine.

Speaker 1 Yeah. My parents are conservative, you know, Trump signed on their lawn, everything like that.
So I always just avoided politics. I thought it was just a means to conflict and I just hated it.

Speaker 1 So it's so funny that I ended up here.

Speaker 1 So for me, Bobby joining Trump just

Speaker 1 represented the closest thing to a unity ticket that we've ever seen before, you know, bringing in Tulsi Gabbard and Elon and, you know, the Freedom Force, as we were calling it for a while, we had these really cool stickers with them as superheroes.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it just, it just represented this, this unifying movement like we've never seen before.

Speaker 1 It's so transformative, you know, two people running against each other, coming together and putting aside their differences for the health and well-being of this country.

Speaker 1 I think that they probably were able to relate to the censorship and,

Speaker 1 First Amendment infringements a lot and the health issue, of course. So it wasn't at all weird for me.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's like I'm thinking about, you know, we're one day trying to figure out how to beat somebody and how to get more numbers and

Speaker 1 up our chances. And then the next, we're trying to help somebody win by getting our, you know, Bobby's supporters over to Trump, which is what we did for the eight weeks leading up to the election,

Speaker 1 focusing on battleground states where they wouldn't let Bobby off the ballot, which is another just hilarious thing.

Speaker 2 Nevada was one of them, right?

Speaker 1 Nevada, yeah, Wisconsin, Arizona, Michigan, I believe.

Speaker 2 Yes, they wouldn't let him off, so he wouldn't steal votes, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
And so it just speaks to the just anti-democratic process.

Speaker 1 It's like, okay, you're not letting somebody on the ballot, but wait, all of a sudden that, you know, they join forces with uh trump you now we're not letting you off the ballot it's crazy really just they were just you make you up the rules on the fly which is so not right and it's not fair to voters it's not fair to candidates it's not it's not a fair process at all so i think them coming together it was i mean it was it was beautiful and it was really best case scenario.

Speaker 1 Bobby's focused on

Speaker 1 these health agencies and making America healthy again, making our food healthy again, making our water environment healthy again.

Speaker 1 And Trump's in there doing his thing like he's been doing so well. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I've never seen so many people on the left transition.

Speaker 2 It seemed like record numbers. Right.
It must have been a record, actually.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's crazy. I think that was like the record number of new counties that went red this cycle.

Speaker 2 And the right won the popular vote, which hasn't happened in a while.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think it's just becoming the common sense party.

Speaker 1 Really, it's like, you know, the left has become so intolerant and the right has become,

Speaker 1 yeah, it's just common sense like boys should not be playing girl sports for example they finally got that one through yeah i know they got and as a college athlete that was a huge one that was you were a swimmer right i played volleyball oh volleyball yeah beach volleyball at pepperdy yeah and that girl got a concussion from that one guy basically spiking it right yeah i knew people who were on track to get a huge um pac 12 or other huge scholarship and then there was a biological man that came in and could obviously hit the ball way harder wow and pretty soon the coaches would drop them.

Speaker 2 That's crazy. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So it's, I mean, that's like your whole life when you're playing a sport like that and getting recruited. It's your whole

Speaker 2 entire life. You dedicated your whole 20 years of high school, middle school.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, and then all of a sudden somebody who's not even a female comes and takes that away from you. It's, it's crazy.
Yeah. So it's, I mean, it's common sense, the border stuff, common sense.

Speaker 1 Like it's, it's all common sense.

Speaker 1 Putting somebody like Bobby Kennedy in charge of our regulatory agencies who knows the chronic disease epidemic in and out and has been, has dedicated his life to solving it, it's common sense.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we got to fix our mental health crisis too. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's huge. I mean, it's crazy.
It's,

Speaker 1 you know, I think it's one in four women are on an antidepressant medication.

Speaker 1 40% of teenagers have a mental health diagnosis, which is crazy. I mean,

Speaker 1 one, yes, mental health is at an all-time low, but it's also just this increase of diagnosing teenagers when they have depression or anxiety.

Speaker 1 It's like, that's a, that's often a very situational thing.

Speaker 1 Like, why are we putting kids in a box and then prescribing them something that they're then learning to externalize their ability to self-regulate and self-soothe and be resilient, you know?

Speaker 1 Um,

Speaker 1 so I think that we need to think about things like nutrition, fitness, community, you know, the opposite of addiction is community, the opposite of suicide is community.

Speaker 1 And think about rather than just, you know, somebody saying that they had a bad day and then prescribing them something that they're going to be on forever and has incredibly intense side effects,

Speaker 1 why, why not support them? You know, why not create programs and schools where people can talk about these things? It's, and, and they're not, you know, put on this mind-numbing medication.

Speaker 1 It's, yeah.

Speaker 2 I think these labels are dangerous too, because once you get told you have depression and anxiety, you're just going to start saying that every day and start believing it.

Speaker 1 We're creating victims. We're creating this nature of victimizing people and allowing them to victimize themselves.
And it's,

Speaker 1 it's the opposite of empowerment. It's the opposite of resilience.
It's teaching people that they cannot be resilient on their own, that they need this product that's.

Speaker 1 making this big company millions and billions and trillions of dollars, you know?

Speaker 2 Because then they're just going to start saying they have anxiety and they won't do certain tasks and then they'll use that as a card.

Speaker 1 And think about that generation 20 years from now, what that looks like, you know, where people aren't working.

Speaker 1 People, the American dream, you know, work hard, make money, have a family, like that's just gone. Like it's, it's really scary.

Speaker 1 One, the, you know, physical side effects of some of these things.

Speaker 1 And two, just the sort of culture shift it's creating.

Speaker 2 I also did want to talk about the infant mortality rate. Oh, yeah.
50 times higher than every other industrial nation combined.

Speaker 2 Why do you think that's so high?

Speaker 1 I haven't, I just heard that stat the other day and I've been thinking about it so much. I mean, I think one, it's, and this is what I've heard.

Speaker 1 I want to do a deep dive into this, but I think it's access to hospitals. A lot of

Speaker 1 hospitals in rural areas are closing because the,

Speaker 1 or they're closing their, their

Speaker 1 maternity unit because it's too expensive to maintain.

Speaker 1 And so then, you know, moms are rushing to the hospital. They don't have

Speaker 1 they don't have access to health care,

Speaker 1 to the, you know, the health care that they need when they're having a baby. And think about how that affects the baby.
I think it's also probably

Speaker 1 what pregnant women are eating. I think it's medications they're on.
I think it's the environment, water, food, you know, everything like that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that number is shocking. And I think that number alone speaks to how dire this issue is and and

Speaker 1 like it just doesn't make sense there's no reason why America should have babies that are dying at a 50 times

Speaker 2 yeah 50 times higher than every other industrialized nation combined that's super clearly there's something wrong yeah I also just found out a lot of nurses are incentivized to do C-sections because it's safer for the hospital.

Speaker 2 They don't want to get sued. Wow.
So the first time they see like a red flag when the baby's coming out, they'll just say, oh, C-section

Speaker 2 to prevent getting sued.

Speaker 1 Oh my gosh. It's insane.
Yeah. And it's, they're just protecting themselves.
Like these hospitals are just protecting themselves and not protecting their patients or their providers even, you know?

Speaker 2 No, it's super concerning. I'm at the point now where if I have kids, I'm not going to go to a hospital.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Like I'm at that point. Right.
Because just the more I learn, the more I'm like, what the heck? They also charge you like $20,000.

Speaker 2 I mean, most families cannot afford that. Right.
That's crazy.

Speaker 1 Right. And then these private insurance companies are just totally benefiting.

Speaker 1 And, you know, you, well, the more you prescribe, the more people are having to pay for medications and pay for health care.

Speaker 1 And then the complications of health care and all of that gets more and more expensive. And so we're incentivizing providers essentially to diagnose more.
prescribe more and care less.

Speaker 1 Like we have a sick care system. We don't have a healthcare system.
It's it's reactive. You know, 90% of what we spend in this country on

Speaker 1 healthcare is attributed to chronic disease. Like once people already have a chronic disease,

Speaker 1 it's totally reactive versus proactive.

Speaker 2 Oh, 100%. When I go to the doctor now, I'm in there for like seven minutes

Speaker 2 and there's an hour line to get in.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And how can you really know how somebody's doing and

Speaker 1 support them if you're seeing them for seven minutes?

Speaker 1 um not even looking them in the eye you know no they don't even remember you the next time you show up it's crazy yeah it's nuts yeah yeah and they're they're just rushing through and there's no individual approach to the patient um

Speaker 1 and then yeah the the over prescription thing is is a huge problem too because again like how can you know in seven minutes if somebody needs to be on communication when i was in college i got xanix in like three minutes of meeting the doctor yeah i never met him before my dad brought me and i got it instantly he probably didn't even know my name right yeah i mean it's yeah it's crazy.

Speaker 1 And I think that problem got a lot worse over COVID. I think,

Speaker 1 I don't think that the level of ADHD increased that much compared to how much the Adderall usage did.

Speaker 1 It's just like telehealth and telemedicine made it so much easier for kids to go on and just say, I have trouble focusing. You know, I think telemedicine is actually a really good thing.

Speaker 1 I think it's going to help people in rural areas with access to health care. tremendously.

Speaker 1 But I think for things like prescribing a 16-year-old Adderall for for the first time, that needs to be more of a process. It really needs to be.

Speaker 2 So you could get it on the phone now.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you can totally get it on the phone. Wow.
And there's no assessment or survey or anything like that. That's nothing.
I mean, I've seen my friends do it.

Speaker 1 It's like, oh, yeah, I've just, you know, I'm having trouble focusing. And then boom, they have a prescription.
Oh, my gosh.

Speaker 2 Yeah. That's so crazy to me.

Speaker 1 And then one thing leads to another, like you're put on something like Adderall, which is a stimulant, and then you can't wind down. So then you're given like Xanax or Trazodone to go to sleep.

Speaker 1 Then you're kind of just this zombie. And then, you know, suicidality increases, things like that.
And then you're put on Lexapro and it's just never ending.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I think the average elderly is on like, what is it, seven or eight different things now?

Speaker 1 Yeah. It's, it's crazy.
And, and middle-aged people, like, how many people do we know that just are on have to take their medication all day long?

Speaker 1 There's something just seriously wrong. No, I don't want to live like that.
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 Well, Bridget, it's been awesome. Any upcoming events, initiatives from AHA?

Speaker 1 Yeah. So we're in Phoenix, Arizona tomorrow at the Capitol.

Speaker 1 We're working on building out this college program where different colleges will have their Maha chapters and clubs. So we'll be going and speaking at a lot of colleges.

Speaker 1 We've also just been getting the word out and speaking at a lot of different events, you know, just really taking every opportunity to expand.

Speaker 1 our Maha army and our Maha audience, you know, both Republican and Democrat events,

Speaker 1 but also just health conventions,

Speaker 1 school conventions, things like that. Any opportunity to get the word out

Speaker 1 we've been doing. So

Speaker 2 we'll link the websites below. Thanks for coming on.
Yeah, thanks for having me. Check her out, guys.
Check out the Maha Movement. I'll see you next time.