Erika Kirk, Turning Point Usa, Ceo, Helped Arrange White House Talks Amid Maha Backlash

Turning Point USA CEO and chair Erika Kirk helped organize the White House listening session this month that put disgruntled Make America Healthy Again advocates in the same room with President Donald Trump, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and their leading advisers, according to two people inside the Trump administration and two people familiar with the meeting, granted anonymity to discuss the details.

It’s one of the first and most prominent examples of Kirk helping the Trump administration keep its coalition together ahead of what is expected to be a difficult midterm election cycle.

Some of Kirk’s supporters see the move as a natural continuation of her slain husband’s efforts.

“Charlie was a coalition builder, right? Like, he tried to bring these groups together,” said one of the people involved in setting up the White House meeting. “Erika, kind of taking the reins in that way and seeing what she could do, it's exactly how Charlie also operated and handled issues like this.”

Kirk’s role in suggesting a conversation between frustrated MAHA influencers and the president they helped elect has not been previously reported, and it highlights how she might in the future use her clout to unify MAGA factions.

Kirk, through a spokesperson, declined to comment.

White House spokesman Kush Desai said Trump administration officials “are in routine contact with MAHA stakeholders and influencers to hear their concerns, questions, and suggestions, and the April MAHA roundtable was one of many such engagements that have been productive for everyone involved.”

The mid-April meeting followed months of criticism from MAHA advocates over Trump’s executive order to shore up domestic supply of glyphosate, the key ingredient in herbicides like Roundup, and support for Roundup’s owner, Bayer, at the Supreme Court in a case that could limit the company’s liability. Many in the MAHA movement believe glyphosate, widely used by farmers to kill weeds, causes cancer and other harmful health effects.

Alex Clark, who hosts a podcast for Turning Point USA, was particularly vocal, criticizing the administration for dismissing what she sees as a key issue to the MAHA base.

“WE ARE IN A MIDTERM YEAR @GOP, IF YOU WANT MAHA VOTERS, ACT LIKE IT,” she wrote on X in February.

Kirk, responding to outreach from the White House, suggested that the administration engage with Clark and others, an idea that was also raised and encouraged by people like White House senior adviser Calley Means, an integral figure in the MAHA movement, and press secretary Karoline Leavitt, according to two of the four people.

There was ultimately wide recognition that the White House should invite MAHA influencers to a listening session, one senior administration official said, aiming to get through the criticism by engaging with it. Other issues, including the stalled nomination for Casey Means to be U.S. Surgeon General and the war in Iran, were causing friction in the movement as well.

The White House “asked Secretary Kennedy and his team to compile the 10 biggest criticizers of that action, people that have been very tough on the administration, and they invited them to the White House,” Calley Means said at the POLITICO Health Care Summit on Tuesday.

Attendees included Clark, Kelly Ryerson, known online as Glyphosate Girl, nutritionist and MAHA influencer Courtney Swan, and others.

The women said they left feeling that the White House was receptive to their frustrations and recommendations for course corrections — though they continue to warn that the administration will not secure MAHA votes in the midterms without action.

On Monday, MAHA influencer Vani Hari, known for her blog Food Babe, expects over 1,000 people to attend a protest she’s organizing at the Supreme Court on the day of Bayer’s arguments to convey just that.

“If there is no real progress, if there [are] no real promises made to correct this, then those women are going to stay home and be with their children, and they're not going to feel called to go vote,” Hari said.

“Women don't come out to vote for glyphosate and war,” she said, lumping in the Roundup fight with the war in Iran. “They just don't.”