Abby Phillip is raising eyebrows over what she sees as a striking political reversal. On a recent broadcast, the CNN anchor questioned why Republican leaders are rallying behind Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s new “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) campaign when its message sounds awfully familiar.
The MAHA rollout included a head-scratching “Rock Out Work Out” video featuring Kennedy and Kid Rock lifting weights in jeans, plunging into ice baths, and sipping whole milk in hot tubs. The pitch? Americans should “get active and eat real food.”
Phillip pointed out that the slogan could have easily been lifted from Michelle Obama’s 2010 “Let’s Move!” initiative, which aimed to combat childhood obesity through healthier eating and exercise. “If that sounds very familiar to you, that’s because it is,” Phillip said, before airing clips of conservative figures who once mocked the former first lady’s campaign.
Among them was former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who quipped at the time, “Why would you want to raise your own kids when Michelle Obama will do it for you?” Conservative commentator Glenn Beck was even more blunt: “Get your damn hands off my fries, lady,” he said, insisting that dietary choices were a matter of personal freedom.
So what changed?
Phillip posed that question to her panel, asking whether conservatives would ever admit they were wrong to ridicule what she described as a largely “common sense” campaign. Xochitl Hinojosa, a former Democratic National Committee communications director, didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely not,” she said, arguing that Obama’s initiative focused on families and children, while Kennedy’s effort felt more like a “vanity project.”
Still, some Democrats see missed opportunities. Sam Kass, the former Obama White House chef who helped lead “Let’s Move!,” told Politico that Democrats “absolutely blundered this issue,” leaving space for MAHA-aligned influencers to gain traction. “Are they hypocrites?” Kass said of Republicans. “Certainly.”
