For years as an environmental lawyer, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. crusaded against a controversial herbicide ingredient known as glyphosate, even winning a landmark case against chemical giant Monsanto by arguing that its Roundup weedkiller contributed to his client’s cancer.
But now that he’s the nation’s top health official, Kennedy is falling in line with President Donald Trump after he issued an executive order that’s aimed at boosting glyphosate’s production. The order would also grant limited legal immunity to manufacturers if they’re following federal directives.
Kennedy on Sunday evening posted a lengthy statement on social media that calls pesticides “toxic by design” but frames Trump’s move as necessary for agricultural stability and national security.
“President Trump did not build our current system — he inherited it,” Kennedy wrote. “I support President Trump’s Executive Order to bring agricultural chemical production back to the United States and end our near-total reliance on adversarial nations.”
It was a gesture of loyalty to the president who has enabled Kennedy’s overhaul of vaccine policy at the federal government’s highest levels, but it also opens a dangerous fault line in their political coalition ahead of the midterm elections in November.
As Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again supporters become more impatient with a Republican-led administration that’s largely resisted their calls to regulate pesticides, they’re speaking up about what they view as a betrayal of their support.
“It’s been a year. Not a single thing has been done by the EPA to reduce our children’s and families exposure to pesticides,” Moms Across America founder Zen Honeycutt, a prominent MAHA activist, replied to Kennedy’s post. “We love you Bobby but this administration needs to keep their word.”
Critics of the executive order said it is part of a pattern that favors pesticide manufacturers, who defend their products as rigorously reviewed by regulators to ensure they don’t threaten human health if used properly.
For example, a proposal from House Republicans would make it harder to sue pesticide companies for failing to warn about the dangers of their products. The Justice Department in December also backed Monsanto owner Bayer in a Supreme Court case that could limit its future liability for Roundup.
“That is America Last, Anti-MAHA, and unforgivable,” prominent activist Kelly Ryerson wrote on social media.
Kennedy pledges change while some environmentalists say they’re still waiting
Trump’s executive order is intended to protect domestic production of elemental phosphorus, which is used in military devices as well as to make glyphosate-based herbicides. It also seeks to protect the production of glyphosate-based herbicides themselves, which the administration says are critical to agricultural supply chains.
Kennedy has repeatedly said that he believes glyphosate causes cancer, including as recently as January.
While several studies have supported Kennedy’s contention, the Environmental Protection Agency has said the chemical is not likely to be carcinogenic to humans when used as directed. Bayer said in an emailed statement that it “stands behind the safety of our glyphosate-based products which have been tested extensively, approved by regulators and used around the globe for more than 50 years.”
