Why Should I Trust You?

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)
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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

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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
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Senator Cory Booker joins us for a conversation about our dire chronic health crisis, the corrosive effects of corporate money in our politics, the power of making healthy food affordable, and our taxpayer-subsidized systems that fuel our chronic disease epidemic. These are issues he's been sounding the alarm on for years. Today, the New Jersey Democrat has a new message for his own party: rather than resist the supporters of MAHA, it's time to stand with them.
Long before MAHA, Booker was raising the very concerns now at the heart of the movement. But while much of his party has greeted MAHA with suspicion and hostility, Booker is making a different argument: Democrats should find common ground wherever possible.
So where, exactly, does he see common ground with MAHA? Can Democrats work with the movement while fiercely disagreeing on vaccines and other critical issues? And how does he answer critics in his own party who see MAHA not as a health movement but as an extension of MAGA?
Today, as he pitches a new coalition: why should MAHA trust him?  And why should his own party?

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

Guest:
Senator Cory Booker, D-NJ

New to us? Check out these three episodes to get a taste! 

Inside A Rare Conversation Between MAHA Grassroots and Public Health Leaders
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/why-should-i-trust-you/id1788335471?i=1000706783000

The Hepatitis B Birth Dose Vaccine: Do We Need It? An Honest Conversation w Dr. Paul Offit & Dr. Michael Mina
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/why-should-i-trust-you/id1788335471?i=1000727322530
A Conversation with Dr. Jay Bhattacharya: On the NIH, CDC, Funding, DEI & His Vision For Doing Science
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/why-should-i-trust-you/id1788335471?i=1000751774699
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Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrustyou.net

Today, we're widening our lens to take on AI and trust because just like public health, science, and medicine, AI is becoming a trust minefield. As trust in institutions, experts, and Big Tech continues to erode, AI is arriving with enormous promises and profound uncertainties. (And don't worry—we're not taking our foot off the gas on trust and health. We're just doing more!)
AI now has us confronting fundamental questions about winners and losers, promises of medical breakthroughs versus warnings of widespread job displacement, and whether the new technology encourages us to offload difficult thinking or frees us to think more deeply. And right in the middle of all these questions is the generation coming of age at the same time as AI.
So, today, we've gathered Gen Zers, high school students, college students, recent graduates, young professionals, and people entering the trades. We discuss the issues surrounding AI, especially its impact on education and work, which are already shaping their lives.
How do they see the opportunities and risks of AI? What excites them? What worries them? Ultimately, what kind of future do they want to build and what kind of lives do they want to lead?
Hosts:
Brinda Adhikari
Tom Johnson
Maggie Bartlett
Dr. Mark Abdelmalek

Guests:
Elizabeth Frost
Khushi Patel
Sawyer Everitt
Bryson Craven
Rotimi Kukoyi
Matt Geistler
Keren Michelle-Asare
Rohan Licht
Michael D. Green

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