SAM DINGMAN: Lauren, you may recall a recent segment you did where, in the intro, you mentioned this woman named Alex Clark. She made some headlines recently for giving a speech at Turning Point USA’s Young Women’s Leadership Conference called the Four Lies of Modern Feminism.
LAUREN GILGER: Oh yes, I remember this. She’s the one who said, “Less Prozac, more protein”?
DINGMAN: That’s the one, yes. It was a memorable quote — and one that got us talking here in the office for a few days afterward. And our senior producer, Sativa Peterson, noticed that Alex Clark lives right here in the Valley. So we thought we’d reach out and see if she’d be willing to come in and talk with us. Because Alex Clark isn’t just a keynote speaker. She’s one of the leading voices in the so-called Make America Healthy Again movement, often abbreviated as MAHA.
Clark hosts the popular Culture Apothecary podcast, where she covers topics ranging from alleged pharmaceutical conspiracies to gender roles in marriage. In a lot of ways, her views align with the right wing of the Republican party. But in recent years, she’s focused more and more on subjects that many RFK Jr. supporters championed in the last election cycle: vaccines, artificial ingredients in food and women’s fertility.
Those issues make her political identity a bit less clear-cut than others on the right. And indeed, in an interview with Vanity Fair last year, Clark said, quote, “The biggest mistake of political media today is that they are not focused on rapport. … We need to learn how to become friends first.” And so, when she did agree to come in for a conversation, I started off by asking her why making friends with the other side is important to her.
Full conversation
ALEX CLARK: I just think it comes from getting to know the heart of people first, right? I think we have a lot more in common than we are led to believe, with people that vote differently.
DINGMAN: Well, in the spirit of getting to know your background, I have read that a big part of your awakening towards food issues in particular happened during the pandemic.
CLARK: Yeah. So there were so many things that were really disturbing to me. One of them was the food supply chain crisis that we were experiencing. You know, grocery stores running out of items, running out of food. And I thought, well, I have no idea where I would go to get these things if Walmart or Whole Foods runs out.
And that’s a problem. For a myriad of reasons, that’s a problem. Knowing where your food is coming from, what those animals are eating, how those animals are treated. This is one of those issues where somebody who’s been a classical liberal their whole life and really mindful about environment or local food and organic and non-GMO and all of that — I’m like, we have a lot more in common than you think.
DINGMAN: Well, that’s one of the reasons I wanted to ask you about this, because if I’m not mistaken, you have been conservative for a long time, right? You voted for President Trump all three times that he ran.
CLARK: Correct.
DINGMAN: What was it like for you to find yourself interested in causes that had historically “lived” on the political left?
CLARK: I love going through different things in life that really challenge you and your belief system and your entire worldview and make you stop and think, ”Wow, there’s so much I don’t know.”
And that’s how it felt when I was learning about corruption in the food industry in America and corruption in the pharmaceutical industry. And the biggest thing during the pandemic was mandating the vaccine.
So for me, I was super disturbed that Americans were largely being told, “You have to inject something into your body. If you do not do this, you may not be able to participate publicly in certain spaces.”
During the pandemic, because I couldn’t prove my vaccination status in New York City, I was on top of the Public Hotel, at a rooftop bar, and I was kicked out. And I thought, “This is evil. There’s something really not right about this.”
And it kind of led me down this rabbit hole to learning about OxyContin and the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma. That’s how we got the opioid epidemic, was because of greed and people wanting to push a product that they knew was harming people. And despite that, they said, “I don’t care. I’m getting so rich.”
So I was terrified that we were going to see the same thing with the COVID vaccine. I thought, I have to talk to my audience about this. And the data, the analytics in my show is exploding whenever I cover these topics.
DINGMAN: So let me make sure I understand. As your organic interests in this subject are pivoting more towards these conversations, you start to notice that your audience is getting more and more engaged, more and more excited.
CLARK: And these are young conservative voters. And I said, there’s something important here. This is information that this demographic has never heard. I said, if we keep talking about this, we will win the 2024 election.
DINGMAN: So clearly, President Trump did win the election. What have you made of Secretary Kennedy’s actions and the broader work that the administration has done so far around the issues that you care about?
CLARK: What I love is we have changed the American food system forever with some of the moves that we’ve made: getting food dyes out of, you know, ultraprocessed food, banning food dyes, different states getting fluoride out of their tap water is huge. Another thing that I’m not crazy about — and this isn’t really Trump — it’s actually congressional Republicans are flirting with the idea of giving full immunity to pesticide companies.
And so this is a huge problem for me. This is completely anti-MAHA. The Republicans in Congress that are flirting with this idea need to know that we’ve got midterms coming up and you are potentially rocking the boat of a lot of MAHA voters that we need — talking from a conservative standpoint — that we need to keep happy.
DINGMAN: Can I ask, are you concerned at all about collateral damage? Because if the aim is health — right, like making people more healthy — there are a lot of people who are concerned about what Secretary Kennedy has done and that the administration has done in terms of like taking research funds away from mRNA vaccines, cutting Medicaid, not doing some of the things President Trump said he was going to do around IVF.
These are things that, for some populations, will result in more death, more health problems. Do you ever worry that the health aims around some of the issues you were just mentioning don’t align with those concerns?
CLARK: So let’s talk about the IVF thing, because I’m really passionate about this. I was very happy that President Trump reversed course on asking insurance companies in America to fund IVF. And let me explain why.
This would have been a disaster for the already looming fertility crisis that we are experiencing. There’s clearly something wrong. By asking insurance companies to completely fund and pay for IVF, we are not getting to the root cause of what is contributing to these infertility problems.
DINGMAN: Well, this is something you talk about a lot on your show, this idea of root causes. When it comes to things like cancer, you have concerns that food additives and agricultural chemicals are leading to the development of cancers and stuff like that. And I think a lot of people would agree that figuring out the root causes of these things is an inherently good thing.
I wonder what you make, though, of the likelihood of casualties in the meantime. If research money and federal attention is pivoted away from things like vaccines for these illnesses, from abortion care, from Medicaid, there’s going to be a lot of people who suffer in the meantime because that work isn’t being funded anymore.
CLARK: Well, to my knowledge, we’re getting out corrupt funding. I mean, you have people funding studies and things like that for these different industries. For example, the pharmaceutical industry can fund studies for their own vaccine. I mean, that’s the type of revolving-door corruption that we have going on. So I think what Bobby Kennedy is trying to do with HHS is get in there and say we want non-biased studies on vaccines.
I think it’s odd for somebody to be against that. The problem is that it’s almost impossible for American parents to get information. If you go to your pediatrician and say, “Can you tell me every ingredient?”, the pediatrician should know. The pediatrician should know if they are injecting your child with something. Every ingredient that is listed on there, right?
But I guarantee if you go to them and you say, “Can you tell me offhand every ingredient in this?”, they would say, “I don’t know. I couldn’t tell you that. I’m so sorry.” That’s an issue.
DINGMAN: So we’re talking about parenting now, which seems like a natural segue to you got a lot of press recently for speaking at the Young Women’s Leadership Conference. And one of the things that you were talking about in your speech was women and careerism. That’s something you have strong feelings about.
CLARK: Yeah. Well, I mean, it just goes to like, your your family should be your priority. So I’m not against women working. I obviously work.
DINGMAN: Sure.
CLARK: So I work, but when we’re talking about lies that feminism has sold women, one of those things is you will never feel as fulfilled as you will with a career. Your family is not going to be enough. Having children is not going to be enough.
DINGMAN: Is that messaging that you feel like you received when you were younger?
CLARK: Oh yeah. I think especially millennials as a generation, this was the message. This is like girlboss-ism, feminism to millennials is it’s career first. It’s where are you going to college? What career path do you want to have?
Instead, how we should be talking to women about career choices and family should start at a younger age. It should start in the teen years, in my opinion. And the conversation should look like this: Would you like to go to college? Would you like to have a career?
If she says “Yes, I want to have a career,” then it’s like, OK, amazing. You are statistically likely to, once you have kids, want to stay home with them as a woman biologically. So if you want to be a working mom, again there’s nothing wrong with that. But it’s having those un-politically correct conversations of what kind of mom do you want to be.
DINGMAN: Sure. But what do you feel is not politically correct about what you were just articulating this idea of? Because what I heard you just saying is like that, a conversation you would like to see being had with young women is: You have choices.
CLARK: I think culturally, this idea to even put in a woman’s brain that you are statistically likely to want to quit your job once you have children, that you are statistically likely to want to at least go part time, that you may not always want to be climbing the career ladder — just to like, put that in her brain at all or kind of say that truth is seen as, again, anti-feminist.
Why don’t we have those types of conversations with men? And my response to that is because men and women are different. We are different. This is why it’s so important to talk about the fact and the reality that there’s only two genders. Biologically, we do things differently. We’re going to relate to our kids differently.
DINGMAN: But I wonder, Alex, if it’s not this idea of like, “There are two genders, there’s something essential about men, there is something essential about women, and these things are just fundamentally true.” I wonder if that’s not where your side of this might start to lose people who you’re looking to appeal to.
Because I think there are a lot of people who weren’t raised thinking about gender in a binary way, weren’t raised thinking about these things in that way. And when you describe it like those things are absolute. I think that might make it difficult for some folks to come over to the other points that you’re making.
CLARK: When I say that gender is absolute?
DINGMAN: Yeah.
CLARK: I just think that’s a biological fact. So like I’m operating in reality. So if we don’t agree, if somebody is like, “Well, it’s hard for me to support MAHA because I don’t believe that there’s only two genders,” I’m like, well, I mean, I can’t help you.
DINGMAN: But let me just ask you, if there’s a trans person, say, who is listening to that and hears you say something that to their ears is rejecting of their lived experience, even if they might agree with you about the problem of additives in food, maybe if they might agree with you about corporate capture of food systems.
It seems like saying something that denies their humanity would prevent them from getting on your side of this issue that you have said, “Every single political conversation we care about starts with food.” This is like the prime directive for you, as I understand it.
Why say things that might exclude people who would otherwise potentially be inclined to get on board with your crusade?
CLARK: OK, there’s a few things that I could say, but I would say, like when we’re speaking to people’s humanity, I mean, we’re all eating food, right? We’re all living here. We’re all breathing this air. So I would say that’s whether you agree on there being two or or 200 genders, we’re all eating this food. We’re all breathing this air. Are we not? So I would say you have a vested interest in wanting to improve that.
But also, if you’re trans, you’re injecting yourself with chemicals, likely. So I don’t think you care.
DINGMAN: Well, not all trans people medically transition.
CLARK: Well, right. But I’m saying if they were though, I don’t know why you would say like “I care about the chemicals in food but not this.” You know what I’m saying? … We all have to eat to survive. So it’s a vested interest. It’s a nonpartisan issue to do something about this.
And then the other stuff? You know, we have four years. We have four years to fix the food. If you hate Donald Trump, you hate everything else that I believe but you do agree on food and pharma, then I’d say hold your nose and vote red, because after that, who knows who we’re going to have in office and if they’re going to carry the torch of MAHA.
(Break)
DINGMAN: We continue now with more of my conversation with Alex Clark, host of Turning Point’s USA’s “Culture Apothecary” podcast. Clark, as you heard earlier, is a big supporter of HHS Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.’s policies on vaccines and food issues. As I mentioned, she’s said, quote, “Every single political conversation we care about starts with food.”
And since it was widely reported that, prior to his endorsement of Donald Trump, Kennedy reached out to the Kamala Harris campaign, I asked Clark to envision a hypothetical scenario where Harris agreed to adopt Kennedy’s ideas, and he’d endorsed her instead. Given her priorities, would Clark have supported Harris in the election?
CLARK: No, because she’s one of the most funded by pharma candidates that we’ve ever had. So if she were to have made that statement, I would have felt like there’s no way that she’s telling the truth. She’s not going to be able to get this done. Like that would have just been talk.
DINGMAN: Speaking of walking the walk, I have to ask you: You have talked about how you are not currently married and don’t currently have kids, right? I want to make sure I’m not mischaracterizing.
CLARK: Yes.
DINGMAN: OK. Do you have any concerns, I guess, about when you go on stage in front of a roomful of women at the National Women’s Leadership Conference and you are talking about the values of a life being married, having kids that you yourself are not currently living? But you are a person of great prominence. You’re extraordinarily successful. Do you worry about sending mixed messages there?
CLARK: No, because I’m very open with my audience and those women about how if I was told tomorrow like, “Hey, you can be married and have kids or you can have this incredible career,” I would pick family. So that’s always been my number one choice, I mean, since I was 18 years old.
At 19, I was praying over my future husband, like, who is he? When am I going to meet him? I mean, this has always been like the biggest desire of my heart. So it’s not that I have purposely put it off by any means, it just hasn’t happened yet. This hasn’t been my personal timing, but it’s clearly God’s timing.
And maybe God’s will is that it’s I’m never going to get married and have kids. And that makes me sad to think about. But if that were the case, I guess my ministry or what I’m meant to do is kind of talk to these experts, get this information so that this generation of moms raising the next generation of kids has better information, better advice on how to raise a healthier next generation. And that’s physically, emotionally and spiritually — all those different facets of health.
DINGMAN: Well, in that vein, I wonder if I could ask you about something that I’ve heard you mentioned in passing — and if you if this is not something you’re comfortable talking about, I completely understand.
But you talked on one of your episodes about your dad getting brain cancer, and I’m really curious when that happened in your life and how much, if at all, that informs your point of view on health issues?
CLARK: Sure. Great question. So I found out that my dad, at 56, was diagnosed with glioblastoma brain tumor in January of 2024, and we were told that he would have probably 18 months to live.
Not only was he battling brain cancer, but he also had serious heart issues. He really needed a heart transplant. His heart was completely shutting down. He had had multiple heart attacks and heart disease. He also was a Type 2 diabetic.
Most of my childhood, my dad was obese, and my dad was addicted to ultraprocessed food. He lived off ultraprocessed food. We did not pass a White Castle or a Krystal or a Wendy’s without stopping.
And even when we removed the brain tumor, my dad on the way home said, “Can we please stop at Chick-Fil-A?” And then once we got home, it was, “Can we please go to Pizza Hut?” It was never-ending.
I mean, of the ultraprocessed food addiction, what people need to understand, like you’re never satiated so that you eat more and then you have to buy more. It’s really evil. And that happened to my dad 100%. And, so we thought he had about 18 months and he ended up passing away in 11 months. So he passed away in December of 2024.
DINGMAN: I’m sorry.
CLARK: Thank you. And so he was only 57. And it absolutely put a fire under me that even doing what I do, hosting Culture Apothecary — which is one of the top 10 biggest health and wellness podcasts in the world — he did not care. He didn’t want to change. He wasn’t interested in listening to these people or what I had to say. It was like he was just resolved to die.
And so because I couldn’t save my own dad, I’m like, I want to save America. I want to save the next generation of children.
DINGMAN: Thank you for sharing that.
Last question for you: You mentioned the fact that President Trump only has four years to make progress on these issues that you care about. Looking ahead, do you see somebody else in the political firmament who you think is likely to take up the cause? And for you personally, does that person need to be a conservative?
CLARK: Great question. OK, so as far as people who I see taking up the torch, number one, Cory Booker, a Democrat senator from New Jersey, has always been very passionate about these issues with food and pharma. This matters to him, but he’s obviously incapable of winning a presidential election. So I don’t know that he’s going to be able to take this very far to the top.
JD Vance, our vice president currently, I know that he cares a lot about seed oils. That is the only thing I’ve ever heard him talk about in regards to MAHA. I don’t know what his views are on anything else. So maybe?
And then everyone else, it’s really fair game. I guess I would say as far as voting for a Democrat, just these issues that MAHA cares about, it’s so weird because GMOs and things were issues of Democrats, you know, talking about legalizing raw milk was issues of Democrats.
This is Hollywood, liberal celebrities cared about these things. So it’s never been conservatives. And my concern is that the Democrat Party as an institution is so embedded with pharma that I don’t know how they could carry on the torch of MAHA.
Now, the Republican Party historically also was in bed with pharma in the exact same way. We’ve never had a candidate on either side that’s been able to get out from underneath the grips of the pharmaceutical industry in America.
DINGMAN: But does it concern you, I’ve done a couple of stories with the local MAHA chapter here in Phoenix, and a number of the folks I spoke to in connection with those stories said to me, “You know, I was a Bernie person. Bernie was my guy in 2016 and even in 2020. But when I saw the way he was treated by the Democratic Party — and once Bobby came along — I decided to go with Bobby. And then since Bobby went with Trump, I went with Trump.”
Which suggests to me that were another sufficiently compelling populist — left leaning like Bernie Sanders — to come along, some number of the folks who aren’t currently aligned with the MAHA movement might go in that direction.
CLARK: One hundred percent.
DINGMAN: Is that something you think about, worry about?
CLARK: For me as a conservative, I am telling the GOP this has to matter to you because this block of voters, they are technically politically homeless. They’re not completely sold to the Republican Party.
And honestly, if I was somebody who was giving my two cents to the Democrats and the future of that party, I would be saying, “If you’re smart, you will do that,” because that’s really I think that’s going to be the biggest life vest that they could put on.
Nothing is working. Nothing is popular with voters. Nothing is resonating. So you have to say, “OK, what is resonating?” And the things that are resonating with Republican voters, 99% of it obviously is not going to work for the Democrats. But the one thing we have is MAHA. So the GOP and the Democrats, it’s up for grabs.
DINGMAN: I know I said those last question. I have one last question for you, if you don’t mind.
CLARK: OK, OK.
DINGMAN: It was recently reported that all these millions of dollars were going to be spent to find a “Joe Rogan of the left.”
It’s not really clear to me what that means, but if there are people on the left who are listening to this and look to somebody like you who has created a successful media empire, has figured out a way to really connect with your base, what do you think people should be focusing on?
CLARK: Curiosity. So when you talk about how the left needs to find their own Joe Rogan, what’s Joe Rogan doing? Joe Rogan is curious. Joe Rogan was a Bernie supporter who voted for Trump. Joe Rogan asks questions. And that is the best thing that you could do. And trust that your listening audience is smart enough to come to their own conclusions.
