In an interview with Civil Eats, Gorton said the MAHA Institute will work to connect people working on the same issues and do more traditional lobbying on legislation. And he said they’ll support the work of agencies like the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which Kennedy now runs, in achieving MAHA goals. “The number of actual, true MAHA supporters at the top of these agencies is maybe 75 people across an HHS that has 60,000 employees, and their job is unbelievably daunting, because these bureaucracies are highly resistant to change,” he said.

When asked about whether some Trump administration actions, such as the EPA rolling back limits on ‘forever chemicals’ in drinking water and the USDA canceling a program that helped local farms get fresh produce into school meals, run counter to the movement’s goals, he dismissed any contradiction and said he was “extremely happy” with the administration so far. “I think there really is a commitment to the larger mission, and changing the government takes time,” he said.

Honeycutt, on the other hand, said she’d been disappointed in some Republican senators’ pushback against pesticide reforms after the MAHA movement supported their campaigns and that restoring regulations on forever chemicals in drinking water is incredibly important to her. “We’re shocked and dismayed that these Republican elected officials and some officials within the EPA are going against Trump’s call to make America healthy again, and we hope that they will see that this is a massive step backwards and that they will listen to the people who are calling for better policies on these toxic chemicals that are clearly harming Americans and making us sick.”

A group of 79 Republicans recently sent a letter urging Kennedy and other agency heads not to recommend restrictions on pesticide use in the MAHA Commission report, expected to be released on May 22.

Calley Means, a MAHA movement fixture who is now a special advisor to Kennedy within HHS, alluded to that tension in his remarks. “As the wins start stacking up—and they will be stacking up at an increasing pace—I can tell you that there’s a thing, an energy around this town, around the country, to divide the MAGA and MAHA movements, but it’s not going to happen,” he said. “This is a powerful revolutionary coalition of people that are going to change American politics.”