Listen to the full episode The nonprofit organization (and its adjoined Super PAC), MAHA Action, is leading semi-regular Zoom calls featuring a host of wellness influencers and RFK Jr appointees, including Jillian Michaels, Dr Oz, and Russell Brand. Derek listens into a recent call to see just what they're saying. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
| Time | Text |
|---|---|
| Welcome to the Maha Revolution. | |
| I'm Tony Lyons, president of Maha Action, and I just want to welcome you all here. | |
| We've been getting really great numbers. | |
| We've had more than 8,000 people on each of our calls. | |
| We've had some tech problems, but it's generally going better and better each week. | |
| There have been a lot more problems than with the tech here. | |
| Maha Action, if you're not aware, is a nonprofit advocacy organization that was founded by Del Bigtree and Robert F. Kennedy about a year ago. | |
| And according to them, it is to mobilize Americans to address chronic disease and improve public health. | |
| The reality, of course, is wildly different. | |
| The president of Maha Action, who you just heard in that opening clip, is Tony Lyons. | |
| He's the founder of Skyhorse Publishing, which has published numerous books by Kennedy, including The Real Anthony Fauci and Vax on Vax, Let the Science Speak. | |
| They also published Melania Trump's biography. | |
| They have numerous books on the JFK assassination. | |
| Early in the pandemic, Lyons ran a very small YouTube channel. | |
| He published a video claiming he would channel profits from Skyhorse into anti-vax efforts. | |
| And while Maha Action has many tentacles into the wellness industry, vaccines remain an important piece of their propaganda. | |
| Full disclosure, in 2017, I published a book on a Skyhorse imprint called Corel Books. | |
| I got the book deal in 2016. | |
| It was for a book about fitness called Whole Motion. | |
| This is long before I covered the anti-vax and the contrarian health space as much as I do now. | |
| I had been covering some of that for a while, but not to the degree that happened with the pandemic and with conspiratuality. | |
| That said, the fact that any money that was generated from that book helped Lions and his cause is something that still will keep me up some nights. | |
| Although I don't think too much about it, it wasn't really a big seller. | |
| Now, Del Bigtree remains the CEO of Maha Action, while Kennedy distanced himself after becoming secretary of HHS, though I'm guessing he's still in touch with them, especially since the Make America Healthy Again or Maha PAC is closely aligned with Maha Action. | |
| Lions and Bigtree also run that PAC. | |
| Every week, or sporadically, some weeks, yes, some weeks, no, Maha Action organizes a call on Zoom. | |
| It features people like Dr. Oz, Russell Brand, Gary Brecca, Asim Malholtrov, Jillian Michaels. | |
| It's a whole host of Maha influencers and contrarian doctors. | |
| Here's Lyons explaining a little bit about it from the October 29th edition. | |
| So the good news is that Secretary Kennedy and his whole team are making incredible progress. | |
| They're making sweeping, decisive reforms. | |
| And we're also seeing historic cultural changes. | |
| So the way people think about food, about big pharma, about big ag, big food, it's changing dramatically. | |
| And the bad news is that these companies have been lying to you. | |
| They've been poisoning you. | |
| And now they're getting desperate. | |
| And they're playing every dirty trick in the book. | |
| They're creating organizations that are going after us. | |
| They're paying influencers. | |
| They're working to make people afraid of change. | |
| And they, you know, they know that we're making such incredible progress. | |
| Oh, Christ, there's so much going on. | |
| I mean, throughout the call, Lyons keeps talking about how any criticism of what Kennedy and Maha is doing by the mainstream media is because they really are funded by pharma or have ulterior motives. | |
| Kind of ironically, he says that they are too quick to rush to judgment because everything is going to take time. | |
| Whereas Kennedy was well known for saying, as soon as I get in, I'm going to change this on day one or three or whatever the fuck he says. | |
| And I want to point out that Lions repeated throughout this call how important it was to organize for the midterms. | |
| So while Maha Action explicitly states that it is not partisan, it is very much a partisan effort for the right. | |
| I'm Derek Barris and you're listening to a conspiratuality bonus episode, Maha in Action. | |
| Let's get into that October 29th call. | |
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