Why Should I Trust You?

On the very day the Supreme Court handed a major legal victory to Bayer Monsanto, a ruling backed by the Trump administration but viewed by many in the MAHA movement as a betrayal, two regenerative farmers were invited to the Oval Office.
They expected to witness President Trump sign an executive order promoting the kind of farming they've spent decades championing: bringing the natural ecosystem back to the farm, and thus restoring soil health and reducing reliance on pesticides.
Instead, they found themselves in the middle of a last-minute policy debate involving President Trump, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins, and Farm Bureau President Zippy Duvall.
What did that moment reveal about the competing pressures on the administration? More broadly, can regenerative agriculture move beyond a niche movement? And how do its advocates respond to critics who argue that today's farming methods work, are proven safe, and that transitioning away from them is impractical?
This week, we're joined by regenerative farming pioneers Will Harris and Dr. Jonathan Lundgren to discuss what they witnessed in the Oval Office and whether we are moving closer to a regenerative farming future. 

Hosts:
Brinda Adhikari
Tom Johnson
Maggie Bartlett
Dr. Mark Abdelmalek (off)

Guests:
Will Harris, fourth-generation cattleman and the owner of White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia, He has served as President of the Board of Georgia Organics and as Beef Director for the American Grassfed Association.
Dr. Jonathan Lundgren, agro-ecologist and the founder of the Ecdysis Foundation and Blue Dasher Farm in Estelline, South Dakota. Spent more than a decade as a scientist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

An essay by Jon Jon Lundgren on the meeting:
https://www.ecdysis.bio/post/five-minutes

Politico:
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/01/trump-oval-maha-policy-live-debate-00983992

Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe! 

Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrustyou.net

It’s almost Independence Day, and we’re exploring one of the most influential political philosophies in America: libertarianism.
In the age of medical freedom and MAHA, libertarian ideas are helping shape debates over vaccines, public health, food regulation, and the role of government. But what exactly is libertarianism? Why has it become so persuasive to so many Americans? And where does today's movement depart from its roots?
Our guest is Katherine Mangu-Ward, Editor-in-Chief of Reason magazine, the country's leading libertarian publication.
We trace the history of modern libertarianism and its influence on today's politics from marijuana legalization and same-sex marriage to debates over tariffs, war, immigration enforcement, and executive power. We also examine where libertarian principles intersect with, and sometimes clash with, MAHA, asking whether a philosophy centered on individual liberty can support vaccine requirements, pesticide bans, or greater government regulation of the food industry.

Hosts:
Brinda Adhikari
Tom Johnson
Maggie Bartlett (off)
Dr. Mark Abdelmalek (off)

Guest:
Katherine Mangu-Ward, editor-in-chief, Reason magazine, widely considered the nation's most famous publication dedicated to libertarian ideas. 
Frequent guest author in the New York Times and other publications. 
Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe! 

Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrustyou.net

Democratic Senator Cory Booker, Representative Chellie Pingree of Maine, MAHA leaders Zen Honeycutt and Kelly Ryerson, and former Congressman Tim Ryan join us to react to one of the Supreme Court's big decisions of the year as the High Court sides with Monsanto regarding glyphosate liability. 
Our panel today represents a powerful, impassioned, and yes, unusual alliance, given MAHA's union with the Republican Party and President Trump. Today, we hear their reactions to this major ruling.
With the Court ruling 7–2 that federal law gives the EPA the final say over pesticide warning labels, thousands of pending lawsuits against Bayer-Monsanto will be impacted, marking a win for the company and the Trump administration, which took its side, as well as a significant moment in the ongoing debate over glyphosate.
What does the decision mean for this bipartisan coalition united in support of the legal fight against glyphosate and for a future in which American farms transition away from its use? With MAHA and the Trump administration finding themselves on opposite sides in this case, where does the ruling leave that partnership? And finally, we hear about the formation of a new game plan for the movement opposing this ruling. 

Hosts:
Brinda Adhikari
Tom Johnson
Maggie Bartlett (producer)
Dr. Mark Abdelmalek (off)

Guests:
Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ)
Zen Honeycutt, MAHA activist, Moms Across America
Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME)
Kelly Ryerson, MAHA Activist, Glyphosate Girl
former Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH)
Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe! 

Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrustyou.net

Fighting misinformation is seen as one of the defining challenges of our time. The term itself can be polarizing. And what if we're thinking about it all wrong?
In this episode, we speak with researchers Michael Simeone and Kristy Roschke, who recently published a peer-reviewed article in a journal in the Nature portfolio, proposing a new framework for understanding why misinformation spreads. Their central argument is a surprising one: misinformation doesn't spread simply because people are uninformed, uneducated, or unable to distinguish fact from fiction. It spreads because it provides value--a coherent explanation amidst uncertainty and conflicting facts, reinforces identities, strengthens communities, and satisfies emotional and social needs. They also factor in the value misinformation might have for a broader community, a commercial platform, or AI. 
Rather than asking, "How did people fall for this?", they encourage us to ask a different question: "What is this information doing for them?"
The conversation challenges common assumptions about health literacy, fact-checking, and who is susceptible to misinformation (answer: all of us). In an era of algorithms, AI, and increasingly personalized realities, Simeone and Roschke argue that understanding misinformation requires us to look beyond individual biases to examine the broader social and technological systems we all help create.

Hosts:
Brinda Adhikari
Tom Johnson
Maggie Bartlett
Dr. Mark Abdelmalek

Guests:
Michael Simeone, co-lead of the Information Competition Lab at Arizona State University’s School for Complex Adaptive Systems and serves on the senior leadership team for the Global Futures Laboratory’s Decision Theater
Kristy Roschke,  Associate Research Professor of Communication of Science and Technology; Executive Director of the McGee Applied Research Center for Narrative Studies Vanderbilt University
Source:
Value and Vulnerability: A Framework for Understanding the Complexity of Misinformation Use
https://www.nature.com/articles/s44260-026-00079-x

Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe! 

Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrustyou.net

Dr. Mehmet Oz, the head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, is our guest today.
He oversees the government programs that provide health coverage to nearly half of all Americans and account for roughly a quarter of federal spending.
At this moment of enormous change, what does Dr. Oz see as his mission?
Alongside Vice President JD Vance, he has been tasked with rooting out fraud. He argues this effort, along with changes to Medicaid in the One Big Beautiful Act, will strengthen thesafety net and preserve it for the Americans it was intended to serve.
However, an official nonpartisan government estimate finds that compared with the previous law, the new law will result in hundreds of billions fewer federal dollars going to Medicaid over the next decade and millions more Americans becoming uninsured. Dr. Oz insists America will spend more on Medicaid, not less. We ask him about that.
We'll also dig into a larger question at the heart of this debate: Was the ACA's expansion of Medicaid—which has covered roughly 20 million additional Americans—ultimately a good thing? 
And finally, we ask Dr. Oz, a renowned heart surgeon whose career was built on medical expertise, what he makes of this moment in America, where trust in experts is falling. Is growing skepticism a healthy correction, or is it taking us somewhere more troubling?
Hosts:
Brinda Adhikari
Tom Johnson
Dr. Mark Abdelmalek
Maggie Bartlett (producer)
Khushi Patel (research)
Isabella Didie (research)
**Recorded at Switch & Board Studios in Washington, DC.

Guest: 
Dr. Mehmet Oz, Administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe! 

Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrustyou.net