Tony Lyons knows how Republicans can win the midterm elections later this year. What they need to do, as he explained in a memo to GOP leaders in February, is to embrace the Make America Healthy Again movement, or at least the most prominent parts of it, like banning soda from SNAP benefits and ditching artificial food dyes. The divisive anti-vaccination issues, by contrast, must be “handled carefully and with nuance.” Follow this plan, insists Lyons—who is president of MAHA Action, a nonprofit that promotes the agenda of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—and the “MAHA Winnable Middle” will be yours.
Getting Republicans on board with MAHA is Lyons’ top priority. Also important: make sure that the movement does not enter at this time.
In recent weeks, MAHA companies have come under fire, especially after Donald Trump signed an executive order to shield the makers of the widely used herbicide glyphosate from liability. Some studies show that exposure to glyphosate causes cancer, and MAHA activists want it banned. More recent Kennedy obstructions—such as Casey Means’ stalled bid surgeon general and a federal judge previous command against changes to the childhood vaccination schedule—hasn’t really helped. Lyons advised disappointed supporters to “stay together and be careful.” Several influential MAHA figures have told me, however, that if the Trump administration ignores their priorities, they see no reason to remain loyal.
With the exception of Kennedy himself, no one was more important to MAHA as a political project than Lyons. He is the movement’s chief strategist, chief spokesman, and—until recently—its most fervent intercessor. Along with the title MAHA Action, he is co-president of MAHA PAC, the political arm of the movement, which aims to help elect GOP candidates who support MAHA’s causes to the Senate and House. Lyons told me he plans to support as many as 20 Republicans in the midterms; recently, MAHA PAC gave $1 million to Julia Letlow, a Louisiana congresswoman running in the Republican primary against Sen. Bill Cassidy, a frequent Kennedy critic. Lyons is also president of the MAHA Center, the nonprofit organization responsible for former boxer and current Trump fan Mike Tyson’s Super Bowl apple-cutting ad. Although MAHA PAC’s stated goal is to elect Republicans, the MAHA Center is at least non-partisan.
Unlike the welfare lobbyists in the MAHA movement, Lyons is unlikely to be caught promoting a pile of extras or posting shirtless. cold-immersion video. Instead he’s the suit with the salt and pepper beard in charge of making it all sound. I last met Lyons in Austin at the annual conference of the Children’s Health Protectionan anti-vaccination nonprofit Kennedy founded in 2018, where he told me that the movement has been unfairly accused of being unscientific and irresponsible. Since then we’ve texted and talked on the phone several times—usually late at night. “I feel like I could work around the clock and that I’m getting stronger and stronger because I believe that I’m doing something that’s important,” he told me during one such conversation. Lyons considers Kennedy a hero of the people and a friend.
Lyons’ day job—and how he first became involved in the world of Kennedy—is running Skyhorse Publishing. Lyons founded an independent press in 2006 and carved out a lucrative niche for books about fishing and sports as well as frequent political engagements, including a bestseller on Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura. American conspiracieswhich claims that officials in the George W. Bush administration were involved in the 9/11 attacks, among other outrageous and unsupported claims. Over time, Skyhorse became known for landing titles with scandal-tainted authors, including Woody Allen and Philip Roth biographer Blake Bailey, after being dumped by major publishing houses.
Skyhorse has recently become the publisher of choice for MAHA-compliant authors—so much so that it now carries the MAHA logo. In 2014, Skyhorse was published Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak. The book, edited by Kennedy, claims that mercury-based vaccine preservatives are dangerous and may be to blame for rising autism rates since the 1990s. (Thimerosal was removed from common childhood vaccines in the U.S. like DTaP, which protects against whooping cough, tetanus, and pertussis, in 2001; there is no credible evidence linking the combination to autism.) The book was widely feared, including by the Coalition for Concerned Scientists, which cited his “distortion and misrepresentation.” research.” But the reviewers, Lyons said, “were making the argument that Bobby Kennedy was dangerous” not because Kennedy’s views contradicted experts in the field—although they did—but because he was a threat to the profits of drug companies. (The Alliance of Concerned Scientists does not accept corporate or government funding.)
Since then Skyhorse has published nearly a dozen of Kennedy’s books, including memoirs and several anti-vaccine publications. The most successful of those books, by far, is The Real Anthony Faucia nearly 500-page op-ed against the now-retired director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases that suggests drugs like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin are effective treatments for COVID (they aren’t) and questions whether HIV causes AIDS (it does). Since Kennedy took office, Skyhorse has also published books by his associates and family. Among them are a memoir by Kennedy’s wife, Cheryl Hines, and a satirical book about Fauci by Robert Kennedy III. According to the Skyhorse website, a children’s book called Making America Healthy Againdue in August and written by the author of another book with the same name I’m not vaccinated and It’s OK!points to “exciting progress” being made by MAHA, which includes “updating the childhood immunization schedule to prioritize safer, evidence-based options.” (Last month, a judge temporarily blocked changes made to the childhood vaccination schedule due to a lawsuit filed by the American Academy of Pediatrics. When I asked Lyons if the book would be updated, he declined.)
Before Kennedy was confirmed last year, he revealed that he would receive an offer of $2 million to $4 million from Skyhorse for the next three books. According to Lyons, the health secretary has been working on a new book, although it is not listed on the Skyhorse website. Lyons would not reveal the title or when it would be available, though he did confirm that the book would include an account of the CDC’s alleged cover-up of vaccine harm. Over the years, Kennedy has accused the CDC of practicing political science, and during his confirmation hearing, he said it could be the most corrupt agency in the federal government. Hundreds of people will be involved in researching and reviewing the book, Lyons told me. (The Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to a request for comment.)
Skyhorse writers are frequent visitors on MAHA Action Media Huba live stream that Lyons hosts every Wednesday afternoon. When Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky appeared on the show in December to question the importance of a hepatitis-B birth test, a split screen showed the cover of his book 2023 Skyhorse, Deception: The Main Cover of COVID. Russell Brand, a British comedian who has been the MAHA court jester—and who in his country faces rape charges, which he has denied—usually appears at the end of the show to announce his crush on Kennedy, sometimes while driving his car and once naked in the bathtub. (Book of Brand How to become a Christian in seven days coming from Skyhorse in May.) Another common one is Robert Malonewho has written several conspiracy-themed books for Skyhorse criticizing the media and the government, which he accuses of using “information-reality manipulation.” Kennedy named Malone to the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel last year, but he recently quit in anger, complaining that the Trump administration now sees the debate over vaccines as a “losing issue” in the midterms. In fact, the fate of Kennedy’s entire hand-picked panel is in legal limbo, and the health secretary has stopped speaking publicly about vaccines altogether, reportedly at the insistence of the White House.
I asked Lyons what he thought of the reports that Kennedy has been blocked, and that Trump advisers are worried that MAHA, far from being the key to victory in the midterms, has become a distraction or even a liability. Lyons wasn’t having it. He denied that he had personally been ordered by the White House, or by Kennedy, to stop talking about vaccines: “No one is telling me what to do.” The reason the movement seems to be in turmoil now, he said, is that corporate interests and “corrupt government partners” are trying to convince the left that MAHA has gone too far, and the right has not gone far enough. “Who has been looking at the hidden ingredients in our food that are making us sick?” He said. “MAHA comes, it starts telling you what these things are, and then we have every major newspaper in the country saying that we are against science, and that everything is settled, everything is fine as it is.”
Everything is not perfect as it is. Most American adults have at least one chronic disease, such as high blood pressure or diabetes. Most of us consume too much sugar and don’t exercise enough. Some of MAHA’s priorities—such as encouraging Americans to eat less and be more physically active—shouldn’t be controversial. At the same time, MAHA’s remarks have also undermined confidence in children’s vaccinations as measles outbreaks in unvaccinated communities threaten to eradicate the country.
Lyons, like Kennedy and other anti-vaccination advocates, rejects the idea that MAHA is anti-vaccination, instead presenting it as an effort to challenge taboos and defend medical freedom. “The breakthrough is that people are starting to see through the idea that somehow vaccines are magic,” he told me. The issue is personal for Lyons: Her adult daughter, Lina, has severe autism, and she has described her as vaccine-injured. Lina communicates using a method in which a non-speaking person pronounces words with the help of a facilitator, often a family member. The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, as well as other medical organizations, consider the technique it has been scientifically disproven. But at the MAHA event in January, Lyons told the audience that, thanks to facilitated communication, “what we’re seeing now is that these kids’ brains are fine.” Lina writes a book using the method; Lyons told me it will likely be published this summer.
It’s easy to imagine how the media and political infrastructure that Lyons has helped create could be used as a springboard for a presidential campaign. In February, MAHA Action hosted Kennedy at an “Eat Real Food” event in Austin that featured Steak ‘n Shake burgers and buns (cooked, naturally, in beef) along with additional copies of The MAHA Cookbook (published, naturally, by Skyhorse). I was there, and it looked, at times, like a campaign rally, even though it had whole milk and ribeyes posters. However, Lyons insists that the odds of Kennedy running for president are one in a million. “He’s not trying to get stronger,” Lyons told me.
Whether Kennedy can hold on to the power he already holds may depend on whether Lyons can somehow placate Kennedy’s restless supporters—all while convincing Republicans that, when it comes to their seats next November, MAHA is essential.
