Far-left Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., came to the surprising defense of Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) activists, pointing to a “ton of anxiety” within minority and low-income groups around the healthcare system.
During an appearance on “The Majority Report with Sam Seder” podcast, Ocasio-Cortez appeared to side with some of the key topics within the growing health movement and sympathized with Americans who may be wary of the country’s healthcare system.
“I actually meet with MAHA activists. I work with MAHA advocates, because a lot of them really don’t believe that their fight is partisan — and it’s not in many ways,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
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The movement and its accompanying phrase was previously coined by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., with the platform taking shape over Americans’ discontent with the country’s healthcare policies.
During Thursday’s episode, Ocasio-Cortez echoed the same discontent to Seder, pointing to the corporatization of certain government organizations.
“We do have extraordinary corruption in our agricultural system, in our big corporate system as well, you know,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “This is an area where both parties — and our entire political system — has been compromised.”
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She went on to recall her previous work in the House of Representatives on PFAS contamination — which are referred to as “forever chemicals.”
“One of the first things I did was, when I first got to the House, be part of these congressional investigations on PFAS [Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances] dumping,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
“And this goes back decades, where you have a big company that is doing manufacturing of some kind and they just dump whatever cancerous byproduct that they have and poison communities around them,” she continued. “And then they just pay off our political class to ignore it and to let it continue to happen, or to shield them legally, like with glyphosate, from everyday people trying to get that back.”
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Fox News Digital previously covered a 2025 study released by Sweden’s Uppsala University and featured in the “Environment International” journal that revealed two common environmental contaminants, PFAS and PCBs, could increase the risk of multiple sclerosis (MS).
Ocasio-Cortez, who is often viewed as the face of the Democratic Party’s socialist movement, also pointed to the rising cost and distrust of healthcare as another contributing factor to the MAHA movement’s growing popularity.
“It’s because there’s a ton of anxiety around our healthcare system,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
She went on to offer an anecdote about her own upbringing in a religious household and how her family’s views may mirror those of everyday Americans.
“I grew up in a household that was very much shaped by these dynamics,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “My dad’s side of the family is Catholic, and I was raised Catholic. But my mom’s side of the family is evangelical.”
“And I see how all of these issues that have been, at their surface level, expressed as right-wing are actually very much just the anxieties that we have as working people [about] not being able to afford healthcare,” she added.
The Democratic congresswoman cited the cost of healthcare as a contributing factor adding to Americans’ anxiety and wariness of the system.
“So it’s also like, ‘How do I stop being sick?’” Ocasio-Cortez said. “‘How do I prevent being sick by limiting my exposure to things that I think are toxic?’”
“And then also when I do get sick, and I can’t afford medicine, what are the holistic and low-cost alternatives that I can turn to, because I know that I can’t afford to see a doctor?” she continued. “And that is a place of tremendous vulnerability that people feel that is immensely legitimate.”
Ocasio-Cortez concluded her argument by looking at the racial disparities throughout the healthcare system as well, while suggesting a history of mistreatment and distrust within the medical community toward minorities has done nothing but throw fuel on the fire.
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“If you add the racial component too — I’m Puerto Rican, the United States sterilized women for decades,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “And so you have COVID, you have vaccines and obviously in the Black community, same thing.”
“That is a perfect storm of a lack of trust in institutions that is oftentimes very valid and very legitimate,” she continued. “And you don’t win that by saying, ‘Oh, don’t worry.’ We’re condescending to it. We do need to fix our healthcare system.”
Fox News Digital reached out to the Department of Health and Human Services for comment.
“What she’s doing here is bridge-building, not conversion,” Jason Mudd, CEO of Axia Public Relations, told Fox News Digital. “She’s not trying to win MAHA activists over to her politics. She’s finding the one grievance both sides already share: people don’t trust the system that’s supposed to protect them, and they can’t afford to get sick.”
“That’s not a left issue or a right issue,” Mudd continued. “That’s every American’s issue.”
