The movement to Make America Healthy Again is an unusual political force. Its blunt views about our collective well-being hold a certain countercultural, even courageous, appeal: We eat junk. We stare at our phones too much and move too little. Chemical companies have toxified our lives. Drugmakers aren’t helping. Our children’s health is too important to tolerate all this.
Many scientists and experts back these conclusions and have fretted about them for years. The ideas poll well. And in an age of polarization, the movement draws together all sorts of Americans — MAGA die-hards, libertarians worried about government mandates, liberal parents who don’t want their kids ingesting trash.
At the same time, many MAHA claims defy science, push misinformation or simply do little to address the problems. Its advocates, including Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., say that common vaccines can be dangerous. That fluoride has no place in drinking water. That chemicals in the environment could be making people gay.
Yesterday — with a long-awaited report about children’s health and a move against drug advertisements — the Trump administration embodied this MAHA alchemy. Today’s newsletter is about the new actions.
A statement
American kids are not all right, the administration says. It cites four reasons: a poor diet dominated by ultraprocessed foods; bad habits like screen addiction and physical inactivity; exposure to pollutants; and “overmedicalization,” in which kids are given unnecessary treatments. Yesterday’s report proposes remedies:
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About 5 percent of children take medication for A.D.H.D. The government wants insurance companies to raise the standard for who gets approved.
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Fluoride in drinking water staves off cavities. And although the levels in American water are safe, Kennedy wants it gone, because too much fluoride can lead to bone and brain problems.
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The government has already limited access to Covid vaccines. Change may come also for other inoculations, including the timing of when kids receive which shots. And the National Institutes of Health will now scrutinize vaccine side effects more closely.
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The government will commission a slew of studies to better understand microplastics, air quality and the cumulative toll of chemicals and electromagnetic radiation.
The report also points to a number of actions the Trump administration has already taken, writes Dani Blum, a Times health reporter. These include cracking down on food dyes, relaunching the Presidential Fitness Test in public schools and studying the causes of autism.
What goes unmentioned. Kennedy supporters hoped he would limit toxic pesticides, but the MAHA statement calls only for more trust in “robust review procedures” and more study about how farmers can use fewer chemicals. It also does not call for direct restrictions of ultraprocessed foods.
What happens next. Kennedy has not said how the government will implement or finance certain goals. Times health reporters wrote that experts like the proposals for “more research on nutrition, greater oversight of food additives, revisions to nutrition labels and healthier foods in schools and hospitals.” But those represent political challenges. “Expecting industry to change voluntarily is fantasy,” one scholar said.
Taking action. Trump moved decisively yesterday on one issue that Kennedy favors: He revived a decades-old policy to restrict advertising of prescription drugs directly to consumers.
Odd bedfellows
Kennedy occupies an unusual role in the administration. He’s an environmentalist and a former Democrat whose agenda differs somewhat from Trump’s, as my colleagues Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Maggie Haberman report. Kennedy denounces the Covid vaccines that Trump brags about.
That awkward dynamic was evident in the MAHA report, too. It says government programs should provide “whole, healthy food” for low-income Americans, but Trump’s domestic policy bill slashed funding for food assistance. It says we should study the health effects of poor water and air quality, but the administration has rolled back pollution regulations.
Yet both men are outsiders who are suspicious of academia and the federal bureaucracy. “Mr. Trump decries the ‘deep state’ and Mr. Kennedy continually calls the agencies he oversees ‘corrupt,’” Sheryl and Maggie write. And the two men need each other. Kennedy’s supporters shore up Trump’s base, and Trump has given Kennedy a wide berth to implement his agenda.
More coverage
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The Trump administration has been discussing severe restrictions on medicines from China. If enacted, they could upend the availability of generic drugs in America.
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School cafeterias are enacting tighter nutritional standards.
THE LATEST NEWS
Nepal Protests
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Protesters set fire to Nepal’s Parliament, along with police stations and politicians’ houses, as anger over corruption, economic inequality and a social media ban exploded into the country’s worst unrest in decades.
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The unrest quieted last night, as the military enforced a nationwide curfew. Troops are now patrolling Kathmandu. Follow the latest updates.
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Young Nepalis are also angry about wealthy “nepo kids.”
Middle East
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Israel’s strike on Qatar — a U.S. ally and a mediator between Israel and Hamas — hit a residential headquarters where members of Hamas’s political leadership live. Hamas said the strike failed to kill senior officials in the group.
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Trump gave conflicting answers about whether he knew about the strike in advance but said that he felt “very badly about the location.”
More International News
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Brazilian nationalists have adopted the American flag as a right-wing emblem.
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A Russian bomb exploded in a crowd of older people picking up pension payments in eastern Ukraine, killing at least 23 people, the Ukrainian authorities said.
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Poland said it had shot down Russian drones that entered its airspace. It called the incursions an “act of aggression.”
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Protesters in France blocked highways, roundabouts and bridges as a new prime minister, a centrist ally of President Emmanuel Macron, prepared to take office.
Epstein Investigation
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A House petition is nearing the 218 signatures it needs to force a vote on the release of the remaining Jeffrey Epstein files. The White House and some Republicans are trying to stop it.
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After Congress released a drawing from Epstein’s 50th birthday book with what appeared to be Trump’s signature, many Republicans claimed that they hadn’t seen it. (The drawing was the most-clicked story in yesterday’s newsletter.)
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Also in the birthday book: A photo in which Epstein holds an oversize check with a phony Trump signature, appearing to make a joke about a woman both men dated.
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Late night hosts joked about the book.
More on the Trump Administration
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A federal judge temporarily blocked Trump from removing Lisa Cook, a Fed governor.
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Chief Justice John Roberts temporarily allowed the White House to block $4 billion in foreign aid that had been appropriated by Congress.
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Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, took the unusual step of retracting a report on Venezuela that described work by a Trump envoy.
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Trump ventured one-tenth of a mile beyond the gates of the White House for dinner at a restaurant. Protesters heckled him there.
Economy
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The Bureau of Labor Statistics revised jobs data again, saying that the economy probably added close to a million fewer jobs in 2024 and early 2025 than it had reported.
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The Trump administration is halting an I.R.S. crackdown on tax shelters used by America’s biggest companies and wealthiest people.
New York City
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Zohran Mamdani leads Andrew Cuomo, his next closest rival in the New York City mayoral race, by more than 20 percentage points, according to polling by The Times and Siena University.
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If the race narrows to just Mamdani and Cuomo, Mamdani has a much smaller lead among likely voters — and Cuomo leads among all registered voters.
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Views on the war in Gaza are shaping the race. A poll has found that more New Yorkers are sympathetic with Palestinians than with Israelis, which helps Mamdani.
Other Big Stories
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Reversing a decades-long ban, the U.S. government will let wildfire fighters wear masks, which can protect against harmful particles in wildfire smoke, after a Times investigation.
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Talks between Harvard and the Trump administration appear to have stalled, but a dozen other universities and major law firms have struck deals with the White House. A Times analysis shows what concessions the deals have in common:
OPINIONS
Gavin Pretor-Pinney, the founder of the Cloud Appreciation Society, argues we take clouds for granted. Look at the different types.
Take Gail Collins’s quiz to see how well you followed the first eight months of the Trump administration.
Here are columns by Bret Stephens on pro-Palestinian gestures and M. Gessen on a Russian defector.
MORNING READS
Ecstatic dance: Robbie Blue’s choreography is plush and razor sharp.
Sex and love addiction: There’s no official diagnosis, but experts say obsessive focus on romance can be a real problem.
Trending: Apple released a slimmer phone — the iPhone Air. It has a shorter battery life and worse cameras.
Sandwich scholar: Andrew Huse, a historian with a voracious appetite for telling stories about food, died at 52. He once went on a quest to unravel the disputed origins of the Cuban sandwich.
SPORTS
N.B.A.: An essay by LeBron James sparked criticism after it ran on a state-controlled news outlet in China. The Lakers star didn’t actually write it, The Athletic reports.
N.F.L.: The league suspended the Philadelphia Eagles defensive tackle Jalen Carter without pay for one game for spitting on Dak Prescott, the Dallas Cowboys quarterback. He’ll be eligible to play against the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday.
THE PAST THAT NEVER WAS
Nostalgia is spreading on social media. In A.I.-generated videos, unnervingly realistic teens from decades past pause their wholesome activities to inform the viewer that the internet killed joy. In one, set around the summer of 2000, a young man with spiked hair tells us about his era: “No chats, no DMs, just stories around the fire ’til morning.”
Anyone who lived through the 2000s can tell you that people weren’t always relaxed and carefree and sitting around campfires. Still, these videos are connecting with scores of viewers online — some who miss their youth, others who are too young to remember.
Read more about the rise of A.I. nostalgia bait.
THE MORNING RECOMMENDS …
Make this red lentil soup. It has five stars after 33,000 reader ratings.
Cook any of these dozen recipes recreating Times writers’ favorite restaurant dishes.
Read Dan Brown’s new novel, “The Secret of Secrets,” which captures a hectic adventure across Prague. Our critic liked it.
Sleep on these cotton sheets.
GAMES
Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangrams were embolden and emboldened.
Here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections, Sports Connections and Strands.
And a new spin on Connections: Sports Edition from The Athletic lets you test your N.F.L. knowledge with games for all 32 franchises. Find your team here.
Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow.
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Adam B. Kushner edits The Morning newsletter. You can subscribe here.
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