Glyphosate is drawing renewed attention after a discussion on the Joe Rogan podcast. In an episode released Friday, former senior advisor to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Calley Means, claimed corporate interests worked with the Trump administration to protect the herbicide. Means said a February executive order framed glyphosate as a national security issue, even though military leadership didn’t view the herbicide as a national security threat. “The Secretary of War, the major generals, they don’t see our lack of glyphosate on U.S. farms as a national security issue. Nobody in military leadership sees this as a national security issue.” Means, who resigned from HHS three weeks ago, also highlighted the 2025 Make America Healthy Again report and the fight to include glyphosate in the document. “It was the greatest fight I’ve ever experienced up to that time in my life to have the word glyphosate in that report and the amount of almost violent reaction against that from industry, calls to (now former White House Chief of Staff) Susie (Wiles), calls to everyone, to have that word not even have it in the report, not even have a government report mention this could potentially be a problem, was the biggest policy battle I had seen up to that time.” In the podcast, Means also claims efforts to regulate sugar and ultra-processed foods were blocked within the White House.
