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Members of the agriculture community are raising serious concerns about the MAHA Commission’s recent report, which questions the use of safe, essential crop protection tools. 

Backed by decades of research, these safe, trusted tools underpin American agriculture—helping farmers produce more food, keep prices from rising, and advance conservation practices like no-till farming that improve soil health and reduce emissions. 

That's why MAA recently joined over 250 agricultural organizations in a letter to the administration underscoring a simple point: sound science—not fearmongering—must shape agricultural policy.

But first…

And now, the main event...

Democratic communications wizard Lis Smith has seen more than her share of crises—and from every conceivable angle. Best known as the fast-talking, wisecracking, supremely media-savvy senior advisor who helped elevate Pete Buttigieg to their party’s upper echelon in the 2020 presidential race, Smith cut her teeth in national politics fending off incoming and putting out fires as director of rapid response on Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign. The next year, she worked for Eliot Spitzer during his attempted comeback after the prostitution scandal that drove him from the New York governor’s office; her subsequent romantic relationship with Spitzer exploded into a tabloid scandal all its own a few months later, costing Smith the job of running the City Hall press shop for incoming Mayor Bill de Blasio. Later still, she worked for Andrew Cuomo as he tried (and failed) to navigate the sexual-harassment scandal that drove him from the governor’s office.

All of which would have been reason enough to have Lis join me on my Impolitic podcast to analyze the crisis bedeviling Donald Trump—and indeed enveloping much of his administration—over the case of Jeffrey Epstein. But what made her an even more alluring guest was her stint last year running the Democratic opposition research team against Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an effort that not only helped cripple his independent candidacy but took Lis down the MAGAsphere’s deepest and darkest rabbit holes.

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From soybean and corn growers in the Midwest, to cotton growers in the South, to sugarbeet producers in the West, farmers across America are deeply concerned the MAHA Commission is setting the stage to disregard decades of scientific research and recommend approaches that will ultimately jeopardize family farms, threaten the availability and affordability of healthy food, and undermine America’s national security. 

As demands for the release of the “Epstein list” (of supposed “clients,” which likely doesn’t exist) and/or the “Epstein files” (from the federal investigations of his alleged crimes as a child sex trafficker, which definitely do exist) grow ever louder, Trump, an instinctive political pyromaniac, hasn’t merely been incapable of dousing the fire raging through his base—he’s repeatedly sprayed gasoline all over it. How much longer can the blaze keep burning? Will Trump’s standing with MAGA get torched, or will he rise from the ashes unscathed? And can Democrats fan the flames without getting singed themselves? My full discussion with Lis, covering all these questions and more, can be found here. As always, the excerpt below has been condensed and edited for clarity.

John Heilemann: If you were working in Donald Trump’s comms shop right now, what would be your reaction to the way he’s been dealing with Epstein-related questions the past two weeks?

Lis Smith: I prep Democratic politicians for debates and interviews, sometimes on really, really tough topics, things that they’re very vulnerable on. When I prep them for something like that, what I’ll say is, Don’t be defensive, get in and out of your answer quickly, and just be casual about it. If you can convey that it’s not a big deal to you, then it will convey to people that they shouldn’t care much about it.

Trump has done the opposite. He’s gone on these long rambles, calling [the Epstein case] a hoax. Part of the problem, beyond sounding extremely defensive, is that now he’s brought in the Steele dossier, the “Russia hoax,” all that sort of stuff. So his supporters might start to put some things together: If he’s calling this a hoax, which we know isn’t a hoax, then maybe those other things also weren’t hoaxes. This house of cards that he’s built on all these lies could fall. He’s played this game with his supporters, where he’s pretty brazenly lied to their faces—maybe they knew he was lying, maybe they didn’t, but they accepted it because they didn’t really care about the things he was lying about. Jeffrey Epstein, however, they do care about. And I think he’s playing with a little bit of fire comparing it to those other things.

In the past, every time political analysts and pundits have predicted, This is the issue that’s going to break the spell Trump has over his base, Lucy pulls the football away, and all the Charlie Browns end up on their asses. With the Epstein story, are we at risk of being Charlie Brown again?

Yeah, we are. I could see this alienating some people who aren’t MAGA hat–wearing Trump supporters. But if you’re someone who, for years, has been going to all the rallies and wearing that red hat, I don’t know if this is going to be the thing. But it does seem to be causing more strife than in the past, because it goes at something that Trump, himself, elevated.

The Epstein story feels like it has legs in a way others don’t because it cuts to the core of what animates MAGA: a sense of grievance against the elites who Trump’s base believes are constantly shitting on them. But now, having hyped the Epstein conspiracy theories for years, Trump is on Truth Social calling people who care about this story stupid for believing him in the first place. Which seems to put him at risk of being seen by MAGA as just another asshole elite crapping all over them.

It’s also getting right at the core of one of Donald Trump’s key messages from 2015, which was “drain the swamp.” This is the ultimate swamp story; Jeffrey Epstein was the ultimate swamp monster. He had his tentacles in everyone, in all of the most political people, across every industry, across every political party. So if you want to drain the swamp, you’d think he would start by getting the facts out there on Jeffrey Epstein. He was running the sex-trafficking ring that destroyed hundreds of young women’s lives. So while we are sort of gossiping about the political implications of this, it is a really sad, tragic story too.

Beyond the ire of the base, what’s been even more intriguing to me are the manosphere influencers like Andrew Schulz who’ve been going on their podcasts and talking about how they feel betrayed by Trump. The voters those podcasts brought to Trump aren’t hardcore MAGA folks. And losing them strikes me as a real potential political problem.

To me, it highlights why Democrats shouldn’t cede that ground. These guys aren’t baked-in MAGA voters. Andrew Schulz is a Democrat, comes from a liberal family, yet he voted for Trump, and when he talks about why, it’s sort of vibes-based, like, Trump was politically incorrect, he has this colorful history with women, he goes to UFC fights, and Dems are just annoying; they wag their fingers at you and tell you how offensive you are. I think that was a pervasive feeling among a lot of these hosts in the manosphere. And when you see Trump actually carrying out these very right-wing policies—mass deportations, rounding up of people at Home Depots, bombing of Iran after saying he would be America First and stop these wars—that’s gonna turn people like [Schulz] against him, because these people aren't neocons. It highlights the flimsy hold that Trump had over some of them.

When Schulz went south on Trump over Epstein, he got complaints from MAGA. And he went on his show the next day and basically said, Fuck you—I’m not a member of your red cult or your blue cult. I’m gonna call bullshit when I see it, regardless of which side is spouting it. That kind of attitude resonates with a lot of Americans right now, I think.

I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but that’s why someone like Andrew Schultz, and people like that, are becoming powerful gatekeepers in this media environment—because the traditional gatekeepers are dead. Someone like Charlie Kirk is always just going to toe the party line. Even someone like Ben Shapiro is largely going to toe the party line. But people [like Schultz] are willing to call balls and strikes. The one unifying thing that drew them to Trump is that they’re very anti-establishment, skeptical of the status quo, skeptical of the powers that be. Democrats should tap into that, but if we’re gonna tap into it, we need to loosen up a little bit. We need to not be offended by everything. We need more Democrats who don't talk down to you—people who bring you in to have a conversation with you and try to understand you. We need people who can hang, people who aren't judgmental, and are just fun.

Putting Pete Buttigieg aside, since you can’t be objective about him…

Right, because Pete walks on water. (Laughs.).

Right, of course. So which other Dems do you think cut that mustard?

Wes Moore is great. He’s doing an interesting thing in Maryland, too, with initiatives to help young men, because there’s been a reality in our party that we don’t care about young men. He’s authentic, and he can hang. I think Josh Shapiro is good. In Pennsylvania, he’s always on sports radio. He also does a lot of drive-time, right-wing radio. He’s someone who can get outside of his own ideological bubble. I think it’s smart that he doesn’t do a ton of national stuff and is very focused there. I love Ruben Gallego in Arizona. He’s so refreshing and real, and he’s willing to speak hard truths that Democrats need to hear. He's definitely gonna piss some people on the left off. But frankly, we need that if we want to win the majority of Americans again.

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