By Sabrina Siddiqui and Sara Ashley O'Brien
As the White House tries to contain a widening split with the Make America Healthy Again movement, protests from MAHA moms over pesticides are growing louder.
MAHA activists and supporters will rally outside the Supreme Court on Monday to protest the Trump administration's handling of glyphosate, the pesticide sold as Roundup. The demonstration, called the People vs. Poison, comes as justices hear arguments in a high-stakes product liability case involving Bayer and tens of thousands of claims that its flagship weedkiller causes cancer.
The most common weedkiller in the world, Roundup is widely used to treat crops like oats and corn. Traces of glyphosate appear in some popular pantry staples, including cereals and snacks that are beloved by children. Bayer, parent company of Roundup maker Monsanto, has denied the product causes cancer and said it is safe to use, citing numerous regulatory reviews.
"The fact is that no health regulator anywhere in the world has ever found glyphosate to pose a threat to human health," the company said in a statement. Bayer said that the Environmental Protection Agency and the European Union "have repeatedly found that glyphosate products can be used safely according to the product label directions.
"It's just crazy, its ubiquitous presence in our lives," said Hilda Labrada Gore, a 64-year-old mom of four in D.C. who plans to attend and speak at the rally.
Labrada Gore, a content creator who promotes ancestral health online as Holistic Hilda, said she learned about glyphosate nearly a decade ago and hasn't shopped the same way since. She only buys organic food, citing limits on the use of glyphosate in organic farming, and avoids foods that she says have higher glyphosate residues, such as chickpeas and wheat products.
"You would never catch me eating a bagel or a croissant," she said.
A Republican, Labrada Gore expressed dismay at President Trump's executive order in February boosting domestic glyphosate production. Her hope is that the rally's turnout sends a warning to the Republican Party about the potential consequences in midterms if the GOP doesn't reverse course on issues like glyphosate.
"I think Trump underestimated the loyalty of the MAHA people, because our loyalty is to our children, not to a party," she said. "The loyalty is really to the people's health."
Event organizers declined to provide attendance estimates. A Facebook page for the protest has billed the event as "the largest food movement rally."
White House officials have described Trump's action promoting domestic glyphosate production as a strategic priority to reduce reliance on overseas production, and not an endorsement of any products. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also defended the move in public, even as he maintained that pesticides and herbicides are "toxic by design."
Pressure around the issue has mounted for months. When a review paper that concluded glyphosate wasn't a risk to people's health was retracted last year by the scientific journal that published it 25 years ago over concerns about Monsanto's involvement, a firestorm went off among those concerned with the chemical's safety. The Environmental Protection Agency has said the government did not rely solely on the paper when evaluating glyphosate.
"Monsanto's involvement with the Williams et al paper did not rise to the level of authorship and was appropriately disclosed in the acknowledgments," Bayer said in a statement.
Katie Bevington , a 30-year-old mom of two, said she has been paying close attention to glyphosate for years. She and her husband recently bought a farm in South Carolina, where they plan to raise their own meat and grow their own food.
She said she started becoming "crunchy" at 19 and was aligned with Kennedy's positions on vaccines and nutrition.
"I think he's had a good start in a few ways," she said, "but then recently we've taken 20 steps backwards."
Although the White House has tried to keep the MAHA coalition together, including by hosting three prominent influencers who publicly criticized its pesticide moves earlier this month, the outreach has done little to ease frustration among everyday MAHA moms who want chemicals removed from food.
"If the goal is trying to make America healthy again, then why isn't that reflected at the level that our food is actually being produced?" said Jess Brownsberger, a 30-year-old MAHA supporter, who has three children and lives in Nashville.
Figures of the movement expected to speak at the rally include Vani Hari, the activist influencer known as Food Babe; Tony Lyons, the longtime Kennedy book publisher and a political force behind MAHA; Representatives Thomas Massie and Chellie Pingree, as well as Turning Point USA star and wellness podcaster Alex Clark.
Amanda Rocchio, a 35-year-old mother of two in St. Louis, also plans to address the crowd. Her @meowmeix Instagram page, where she offers nutrition advice, recipes and suggestions for "non-toxic swaps," has 1.6 million followers. "I don't think that people in America and moms in America should even have to pay extra just to not have this poison sprayed on their food," Rocchio said.
Write to Sabrina Siddiqui at sabrina.siddiqui@wsj.com and Sara Ashley O'Brien at sara.obrien@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 27, 2026 07:00 ET (11:00 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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