Clive, Iowa — Calley Means, a former senior adviser at the Department of Health and Human Services, told – News that Iowa could become a national proving ground for the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement. He pointed to the state’s agricultural economy, concerns over cancer rates and Republican gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn’s willingness to confront difficult questions about food and public health.
The MAHA PAC held its “Get Out the Vote Rally” on October 28 in Clive, a Des Moines suburb, ahead of the November 3 midterm elections. The event featured Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Lahn, Means and a group of Republican candidates, elected officials, and advocates focused on health, consumer issues and agriculture.
In an exclusive interview after the rally, – News asked Means whether Iowa could serve as a model for putting MAHA policies into practice in other states and helping elect candidates who support the movement.
“Iowa is ground zero,” Means told – News. “When we think of agriculture, we think of Iowa and the MAHA message that we need to put farmers at the center of health and have a thriving farm economy.”
“And I think that’s not going to happen without asking big questions, big questions about what the future of farming looks like — how we can build a future of great, safe, real food,” he continued. “I think it ties to the health issue.”
“Zach has bravely talked about the cancer rates in Iowa, and that’s a big topic around the Iowa kitchen table,” Means said. “And as Bobby Kennedy said, the path is honest conversations and plotting a future where we have healthy Americans and great food.”
“I think this existential conversation starts in Iowa,” he concluded.
Means spoke less than a week after he announced his resignation from the White House in an October 22 post on X. In the message, he expressed “tremendous respect for President Trump and Bobby Kennedy” while reaffirming his commitment to the MAHA movement.
“They laid out a vision of combatting the entrenched, dark forces in DC that profit from Americans getting sick,” Means wrote. “More policy and cultural change has happened around these goals in the past 2 years than any time in history – and I know this movement is just getting started.”
“It was an honor to advocate for MAHA moms in the administration and steer policies like Dietary Guidelines reform, psychedelic reform, removing soda from SNAP, removing food dyes, GRAS reform, and overhauling government food procurement,” he added.
At Wednesday’s rally, Means also discussed his exit from the Trump administration and described his experience working alongside Kennedy at the Department of Health and Human Services.
“I left my job very recently, which means I can spill the beans. I can give the truth about Bobby Kennedy’s tenure in the Trump administration from the inside,” Means told attendees.
“What is so clear to me from spending, from having the privilege to spend every day of the last two years with Bobby Kennedy, is that there has never in modern history been a person with more integrity that has come to the halls of power in Washington, DC, than Robert F. Kennedy,” he said.
“Bobby Kennedy is the most fearless man I’ve ever met, and he is fighting every single day for every single MAHA mom in this room against very dark forces,” Means continued. “He’s doing it with the support of President Trump, but they are fighting a broken D.C. infrastructure.”
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Means argued that the country is entering a pivotal period. “I think we can feel that we’re living in consequential times. I think we can feel that the next ten years are going to be decisive for America,” he said. “They’re going to be some of those disruptive, consequential years in American history.”
“I think we can also feel that our institutions in Washington, DC, and around many institutions we trust in the states, they’re on the verge of failure,” he continued. “They are on the verge of failure because of the cowardice, because of the, frankly, incompetence of their leaders.”
Still, Means said he saw grounds for optimism. “But I think this is also optimistic because we can do better,” he added. “I think Bobby Kennedy, the MAHA moms, is showing how we can do better. Leaders like Bobby Kennedy and Zach Lahn showed that we could do better. But we have to put people like Bobby and Zach in leadership positions.”
“This is a moment for truth to ask questions that the special interests don’t want us to ask,” Means said. “To ask questions like Zach has framed his campaign on: why, out of every geographic location in the world, why is the ground we’re standing on, why does it have the highest cancer rates of any place in the world?”
“That’s a question a lot of people don’t want to be asked, and it’s a mature question,” he continued. “A lobbyist in D.C. lectured me. He’s like, the people of Iowa can’t handle the complexity of this question.”
“I said the people of Iowa can handle two issues at once,” Means recalled. “Of course, we need stable input prices for our farming, but we also care about the health of our children, the health of our food, and we can grapple. The people of Iowa can grapple with complex challenges.”
“Zach has also brought up a spiritual conversation, along with Secretary Kennedy, about the connection between the health of our farmers and the success of our farmers and the health of Americans,” Means said.
“The fat cats and the pharma companies are making all the money off this chronic disease, but nobody has the common sense to say where we can have a spiritual revolution in this country to recognize that the farmers are the key to our health crisis, and we need to respect farmers,” he continued.
“And the road to better health goes to our fork, not the prescription pad,” Means said. “And that’s the important long-term conversation that Zach Lahn and Bobby Kennedy are representing, and that’s an existential question for America.”
“Why has the international monopolization of our farming shut down family farms? Why do family farms have a boot on their neck with incentives that only help the big guys? Why is China and hedge funds buying up so much land in Iowa, and why are Iowan kids so sick?” Means asked.
“The answer to these questions is actually very simple. It’s because very powerful industries profit from these dynamics,” he continued. “Very powerful industries profit from family farms going under, and they profit quite frankly from sick kids who need care for the rest of their life, and we need candidates with the courage to see that as it is, and call it out.”
“The buzzword of this election cycle is corruption,” Means said. “Corruption is now the number one issue for Americans, and the reason we have an affordability crisis, the reason we have a crisis in agriculture and with our farmers, and the reason we have a healthcare crisis, is not because of any specific policy solution.”
“It’s because of corruption. It’s because there are so few leaders like Zach who have a willingness to tell the truth,” he concluded.