Ruby Cramer: The Power of MAHA

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If you're looking for a bunch of politics, you can have that over on the next level feed. I just looked at our outline for today's next level show. We've got Trump Madness, Hegg Seth Madness, some new ads, so we're going to discuss.

So come hang out there. But on today's show, it's RFK Madness. We're talking about, I'm tickled to welcome. For a long overdue and I'll give you a visit to the pod and old friend, she's a staff writer at the New Yorker,

covering politics. She's at the Washington Post and Buzzfeed. She's got a new article out. The print edition is called The Scare.

“Online, you can find it as a Mahahah custody battle.”

It's a Ruby program. Thank you. What's up, Ruby? Why, Tim? Nothing, I'm so happy to be here.

Me too. You tell the story in this feature. So I look at it as you do, and it's a story in West Virginia. My husband's home state about a couple of Michael and Leah. But before we get to them, I just kind of want to do big picture here.

You quoted a democratic strategist that said about Mahahah. It's two truths in a lie. And that's how people get sucked in. And I just kind of wanted to hear from you kind of on the bigger picture, like what you discovered interviewing all these people,

and spending seems like spending a lot of time on Mahahah message boards. Yeah, it's the last four months of my life. Basically, I've been like endlessly doom scrolling on parenting Facebook groups. It was a really interesting project.

I had never written anything about Mahahah.

It was, you know, like, of course I followed it with a closely and I've been really interested in it. It's a political movement that sort of like defies expectations and stereotypes and crosses, really interesting part of the lines, and isn't very easily defined, so wide-ranging and has so many different tenants, which also, for Democrats, makes it really hard to combat.

“And I think that's what the strategist was part of what they were getting at with this quote,”

which was one of the best sort of summaries I heard of the appeal of Mahahah. And the way that people kind of become low hanging fruit for the Mahahah movement, this idea of it being two truths in a lie. So like, yes, it's true that chronic disease is an epidemic and is on the rise. One truth, it is true that ultra-processed foods are potentially harming our bodies

and make up more than half of our daily clerk intake, which is crazy. But like, the lie that's snuck in there is that, like, vaccines that have been standard care for children, for decades are something that, you know, we should be studying, you know, for a potential link to autism, which is like, you know, the main sort of crux of the anti-vaccine movement that's been disproven again and again.

So, like, these little sort of suspicious claims about the medical authorities in our country, like, lying to us, like, those are the things that kind of get snuck in into the movement that come alongside these, like, other, you know, arguably really good things that Maha has pointed our attention toward. Did you find yourself being sucked in at all, reading the posts?

Did I get, yeah, you worried about beef towel? No, we're not worried about beef towel. We'd like beef towel. Are you attracted to anything? We like beef towel, and we don't like sea doils.

You know, I found it really compelling, sort of, like, emotional atmosphere to live in for a while. Like I said, I was just kind of existing in these online spaces for a really long time for my research for the story. And you can see really easily how you kind of, like, get sucked into this idea that,

like, basically, something is poisoning our bodies.

Like, big format is, like, out for profits, not just our wellbeing.

I understand, and it's really true, it's easy to get kind of, like,

sucked into that way of thinking. And while I didn't get fully maha-pilled, I definitely found the anxiety and the fear of these parents that are just trying to do the best they can and navigate different online spaces, specifically, like, really understandable and relatable. And it was easy to see how guts take into an extreme, really, really quickly.

RFK seems, like, such a unique figure in this as, like, a catalyst. And a lot of the stuff has been happening for a long time. You know, and it sort of gets really, like, kind of brought together, like, in a way, kind of, like, based on his unique, like, weird, various beliefs. Like, I remember people coming to John McCain town halls in 2008,

concerned about the autism link, right? Like, that existed. And, you know, there was, like, woo, woo, you know, stuff that's existed for a while now,

“like in his own orbit and, you know, concerns about process foods, right?”

Like, but it all has got blended together. Is it because of RFK or, like, what's the chicken in the egg on that, do you think? I think it's a really good question. I don't know the answer because Kennedy has, I give him credit, because he put words to these feelings that we've all felt and seen,

and that have been, like, proven time and time again by all the biggest storylines in our healthcare system over the past 10, 15 years. So the whole concept of healthcare being, you know, just disproportionately expensive in this country,

and everyone being saddled with, like, really incredible medical debt.

He's talked about that. This idea that why are more and more people getting sick with chronic diseases? And we know that people are eating unhealthy foods, and we know that sort of, it's being driven by corporations that are out for profit. Like, again, I got, got some coming back to Tutrius in the light again.

Like, you know, this is true. We know this is a feeling that people have, and he put words to it for the first time. And it almost made me think, like, as I was looking back on, some of his messaging when he was running for president in 2024,

and then later when he was sworn in, and also when he endorsed Trump after pulling out of the race, I was sort of marveling to myself, that a politician or a leader in the political face didn't do this earlier. Like, even the opioid epidemic, it's like, all these things

that have been swirling around in the atmosphere over the last 15 years

that we know are so viscerally felt for families. No one was talking about it in this way. So I kind of give him credit for kind of, like, just taking existing pieces of these, of this declining trust.

“I think that's the main sort of, like, undercurrent”

and putting words to it. I'm reluctant to hand it to RFK. You know, it's kind of like the drill ISIS meme. I don't know if you have to hand it to. No, not it.

We're like, you know, not doing MRNA cancer studies, since he's in there. But like, the point of someone else could have grabbed this mantle in a way that focused more on the treats. I think that is right.

And did it responsibly? Yeah. And particularly on the left. This is, I wanted to get to Michael and Leah. There were two things that struck me.

I guess I told you about these people and just gave you these these generic descriptions, like 10 years ago, and you asked them which party they were in. Everybody would say, oh, those people are Democrats. Like Michael was a long hair, bell bottom wearing,

like musician, gig musician. And Leah was like into numerology, divine femininity. She thought she was receiving messages from the universe. She had a truth tattoo.

These people seem like they could have been certainly gettable for Democrats. What happened to the world? You know, when we talk about the groups, like there's all this talk, and I do it.

Like about the manosphere, or about my people, like the former Republican college educated voter, or the Bernie to Trump voter, like this is a big demographic kind of of these people that are, you know,

I think more than whatever natural S, to maybe a little conspiratorial minded. And like they've happened Republicans, like until two minutes ago. Until two minutes ago, and even now they don't really fit.

Like these these two characters in particular, don't even really fit our expectations of like, what a magga Republican voter might look like now. And I intentionally kind of tried not to describe them and with political labels in the story,

because I wanted to show how you really fit into these boxes.

“And I think it's really, really indicative of the moment.”

We're in where it's like nothing really quite makes sense in the way you expect it anymore. Everyone's not about data centers. Everyone's upset about Jeffrey Epstein. Like all these sort of things and feelings, again,

even like two or three or four or five years ago.

Well, their story's pretty sad though. So buckle up. Well, I guess it's not the sad. Nobody's dead yet, so that's good. I'm just going to let people, you know,

do a little trigger warning for people, but tell us about the kids are okay. Yeah, so three kids.

“As mentioned, the all-tab line of custody battle.”

It's literally centered around views over their treat medical treatment. Yes. And I will say to just like as a preamble to Michael and Leah, I interviewed so many different people who were in and around the

long, have moved in and clean like moms who had gone down the Mahavrabagal and really committed to the lifestyle and then came out of it and we're sort of just trying to figure out what they believe again. I talked to people who were still in the movement.

I talked to people that loved to behind years and years ago. So Michael and we are two people who live in West Virginia. They met when they were really young. They met online. They got married.

At the time, they got married. Neither one of them was particularly interested in health care or wellness. One thing that Leah knew for sure was that she wanted to be mom.

She wanted to be a stay at home mom specifically too. And while I wouldn't necessarily describe her then as a conservative person, she was sort of rubbing up against this strain of mainstream feminism at the time.

I guess like era of Hillary Clinton, leaning in girl-boss type moment.

She's like, wait a second.

I want to be a stay at home mom. I was born to be a mom. I've been dreaming of being a mom. This is my dream in life. It's the thing that matters most to me.

And I'm kind of feeling like there are people in the world who look down on that. So that's core. I think we're calling it cottage core back then. cottage core.

Who knows what we're calling it back then? We don't like to remember those times.

“So I think that that becomes kind of an important thing”

for her experience later on too. So they get married two years later, she's pregnant and has her first child. And again, is not someone who's given a lot of thought to vaccines. The boy who's boy named Keith gets all standard vaccinations as a baby. He gets the vitamin K shot, which is another thing

that's become suddenly controversial. Standard care for infants since 1961. He gets all the things. Then the pandemic comes.

And Leah is pregnant again this time with her second son.

And while she's pregnant, lockdowns are happening, her husband who, as you mentioned, was sort of like a bell bottom wearing old school rock and roll fan. And I think by then was really kind of coming around to a more conservative way of thinking. He was a Trump voter. He works as a gas station sort of like technician.

And his work wasn't impacted by lockdown. So he told me he gets most of his news from a conservative aggregator called citizen free press. Are you familiar with us? Oh, I know that's just some free press. I wasn't, but it kind of looks like drugs kind of.

Like it has just like links. It literally started because drugs got too woke. So there was a mega right, drugs competitor that was more Trump friendly. And less. I don't know, gay or whatever the problem.

Okay, so for context, like this is what Michael's favorite news sources. Yeah, so he's reading about the virus on this site. He kind of thinks something's fishy with the pandemic. He's watching kind of in horror. As people, you know, follow mask mandates.

And like as like these plastic bear, you know, he was like describing with a great duration. The plastic barriers that went up around cash registers and stuff like that. So as the pandemic is unfolding. Leah spending just like more and more on time online like many of us. And she sees people in her sort of Instagram community,

saying to fight about masks and vaccines. And she just kind of follows her curiosity. Like she described herself to me as a really open minded person. And it was almost like one of these views sort of entered her feed. She just, you know, accepted them into her life.

And I know a lot of people might be like, oh, you've got to know better.

“But I think if you go back to that first year of COVID,”

such a vulnerable time, like so easy to just, yeah. I mean, I will say, look, with love. And obviously, these are the people that were correct for the most part. But like, you know, and it's not that different from the Fauci candle instinct. Right. I mean, like, it's a little different in that like with Fauci,

And so like putting your trust in that person, like makes more logical sense to us. Like there was a lot of some illogic to it. Like there is like a cultishness to it. And like there's this kind of uncertainty. And like people grabbed onto something and like, that makes sense to me.

Totally. And there was a lot of like weird public shaming around who wore a mask and who didn't. And who was doing the vaccines and who wasn't. And I think she bristled at that. And it was also around this time that she began to sort of like position her status as a

“state home mom is like an act of defiance, you know, which I think goes hand in hand with some of this.”

Right.

So she's kind of starting to think about vaccines for the first time.

She meets a mom who, you know, on social media, a total stranger who tells her a horror story of a vaccine injury, which is the term of choice in the whole world. Okay. And just like, you know, a vaccine injury and, you know, a child that had, you know, like a seizure, which these things do happen.

And was vomiting apparently after getting a vaccine and in this story sort of like medically, the doctor pulls this woman aside and says, you know, vaccines aren't safe as you think. And here's why and, you know, who knows if this was a pucrophil or what happened. But Leah is terrified by this story. And just for a couple months, her elderly grandmother after receiving two doses of the

vaccine passes away. She blames the vaccine. This is perfect storm sort of coming together. And suddenly, like, it really does not take long where she is considering herself,

it quote unquote, crunchy mama.

And, you know, she's, she's no more red dyes in the house. Tim has his head in his hands at this point. No more red dyes. You know, no chemicals in the food. Um, you know, and Michael, who.

“I think like in many families in America had defer.”

Choices about like taking care of the kids to the mom was sort of like, uh, whatever. I'm just kind of pissed that organic groceries cost more and like. That like really like he's like, I don't get where we're buying organic peanut butter. And she's like, this is what we're doing now.

There's no. There's nothing Jeff. There really is no replacing Jeff. Yeah. And I mean, Michael comes away as you get into this custody battle where he wants them to,

you know, get vaccinated, etc. Eventually after some sicknesses happen, reaching out twice. Yeah. He has kind of the hero of the story in some ways, but also he's like, you know, taking them on motorcycle rides.

Which had me a little bit. And how much. And how much? I don't know. As a reader, I was kind of like,

ah, he loves that. But anyway, I fast forward to the kids and not paying back. Yeah.

So the kids basically, as soon as she goes down this rabbit hole,

she decides to no more vaccines. And one of the scary things about that in this family is her middle child. Donnie suffers from spinal muscular atrophy SMA, which is a genetic disease that weakens your muscles and leaves you basically more vulnerable to respiratory illnesses.

So around the time that Donnie's diagnosed with SMA, Michael starts like kind of asking more questions for the first time of,

“of Leah about like, what's this vaccine thing all about?”

Like, why, you know, should we be doing it? Should we not be doing it? I don't think this marriage was necessarily destined to work out, but it does come to a head sort of over these issues. In 2025, one night, Michael is seeing Leah.

You could, you know, she's on her phone more. And he thinks that she's cheating on him. And one day in dramatic fashion, he kind of grabs her phone and runs to the garage in the back of the house and starts looking through her messages, trying to see if she's cheating.

And it turns out, no, she's not cheating. She is talking with a holistic, spiritual guide slash. She's paying and bitcoin. She's paying bitcoin. And I just want to say one thing, because I know this is like head and hands moment.

But what I learned in my research for the story is that this world, and all the sort of like fringe/deversions that are attached to it, so much of it revolves around like making a buck. Like, yeah, you don't say. Yeah, I know.

There's some gifters in the box. There's some gifters in there out there. And I talked to some really smart people that were like, oops, I accidentally spent 10 years in a multi-level marketing company, selling capsules of dried fruits and vegetables.

And I dedicated my life to selling these fruit and vegetable capsules. Smart people. Yeah, I know.

“The story is about to get a little tragic,”

so I just want to sit on the humor for a second.

Okay. It is a funny scene of like a prestige television show. Like going to grab the phone, thinking that your wife is cheating on you, and you're going to discover it, and then finding out she's sending bitcoin to a holistic spiritual guide.

It's very like HBO Max and five years. Yeah. Yeah. It's very like, did you see Eddington the movie? Hmm.

No. Okay. Well, that is like, if you wanted to. It's like the prestige movie horror film of March 2020 COVID era. Oh, right.

I did see that. Sorry.

I forget the name of things I watched.

I did see it.

“And there's like a fight over a data center that's kind of happening”

in the back of the film the whole time. Anyway, this could be like a subplot of a movie like that. Spoiler. That's just a killer. She was paying a bitcoin did not heal the children.

And they get sick. The kids got sick this spring. And it was around the time where measles was on the rise. South Carolina was in the middle of the biggest outbreak that we've had since the virus was declared eliminated in 2000.

Other outbreaks were underway like in many states. The thing about measles is it's like it's so incredibly contagious. Just don't know that these immunization levels have dropped below the threshold for herd immunity.

Like we as a country just no longer have the ability to contain measles.

That's sort of the consensus that it came to talking to the medical experts and doctors. Right. So measles was on the rise in the spring. The kids are home with Michael for spring break. One of them has a runny nose and a ping-pink eye normal stuff.

“Donnie the tub with SMA starts to get kind of like water rises well.”

Michael's like this I don't know. They've they've they're sick a lot apparently. Over the course of the spring break. They get sicker and sicker. Soon the youngest a girl gets sick as well.

And you know, let's say I give everything away in the story. Although we've already talked about the spiritual healer. You know, it's like a week of hospital visits. And at one point Donnie breaks out in a rash of flat. It's like a reddish blotches.

A very distinctive rash. A rash that looks exactly like a measles rash. And it just kicks off this sort of nightmarish week of hospital visits. Ambulances. The youngest child who was three at the time is like hooked up to little tubes in her nose.

And is being tended to by doctors. There's a stretcher. Little mini stretcher and doctors and isolation mat just nightmare. True nightmare. The kids are okay now.

But it just in true like Maha modern tale fashion. You know, all of this played out on Facebook. Michael, who you've referenced his motorcycle is sort of like a micro influencer in the motorcycle community. In the middle of the Atlantic. Was posting about this in real time.

Uya, who's also sort of a micro influencer. Was seeing these posts and her mom was posting back on Facebook. And they were, it was, it became this very public fight that was playing out in Facebook. And if you looked in the comments, you know, little fights over vaccine safety would break out. And it was just a mess.

But like all things related to Maha, like there's just a level of. A level to which people are experiencing their lives online in a way that I don't think we're fully like reflecting on. That was very evident in the sort of saga of this couple. There are only two thousand and three of them. We're in a fair competition here.

The biggest advantage of shopping for me is that we don't need any technical reasons for this. We all know about the back end and the front end. And as soon as they were in the fair game, the online shop. If you're shopping for the fair, then you're the platform that's actually fair. They're simply the main thing.

Our whole story is over shopping for you. Start to yet stay in constant news and test of Shopify. Come in. In the spirit of knocking everything well. People read it. See exactly how it finishes.

But I wanted this kind of pull apart. We went down and visited and interviewed both of them. Michael and Leah after, you know, kind of this health scare for variety of reasons. Leah is not like convinced, but it was. Vaccine related.

There's something that David from said on this podcast like three years ago. That I was really stuck with me about about cults or about MLMs or about anything, which is like if you have a friend that gets duped in a scam. And you figure it out. You know, whether that is whatever I've got condo to sell you in the Everglades or anything.

Like the friend is more likely to get mad at you.

Right. The friend is more likely to get mad at you than the person that duped them. It's just like a human natural defense mechanism. Right.

“And like, this is kind of replete throughout your kind of reporting, right?”

Which is just like the people who are really button on this. Like they feel talked down to. If they get brought information to the contrary of what they know. It kind of they dig in further, not every character, but like a lot of characters. I'm just wondering like.

If there are any like lessons from that that you took as far as. Disentangling people from this like I don't know. It's probably it's pretty it's pretty bleak to like look at this and be like her three children. Had, you know, this really horrible sickness and you still come out of it like not changing your mind. Not believing that vaccines are like a good thing or necessary.

“Yeah, I think one of the most interesting.”

Um, revelations I had and reporting this is I was talking to a non-partisan group in Washington. That was doing a study about Mahal. They were just trying to understand like, what is this piece? What has it become like, you know, what do we do about it? Um, they in the course of the study through interviews with with moms in the movement.

Found to your point that same things like trust the science or follow the research or like. Like trust experts. It just translates to different versions of like you think I'm stupid. Yeah.

And I think that's basically true.

I mean, I think people don't want to be told that they're doing the wrong thing for their kids and that anyone else knows better. What the right thing to do for their kids is like it is true that as a parent nobody cares about your kids more than you do. So who is to say that like some random person on Facebook or journalists or talking at on TV or you know, like a future democratic head of HHS is going to know better. Opposite probably. Honestly, like at this point like, yeah.

There are a lot of things a Democrat could fix in 2029, but I don't know. I read stories like yours. I'm like this one on the list. I think probably, you know, because the lack of trust. The immigration system like there are other things. I don't know how you put this like back in the the to pace back in the tube or whatever.

Like I think one of the things sadly that will do the most to sort of reverse views on this is the actual return of vaccine preventable diseases. Like measles is not going away. What being cough will come back like it already is polio vaccinations are dropping. Like there are going to be story after story of what happens when the sort of tenacity of belief and ideology meets a hard biological reality. And I think for some moms, I talked to who recently came out of the Maha movement and sort of went into what one called their unlearning phase.

It happened because the anxiety of living with an unvaccinated child as a virus like measles is reemerging is so intense. Like one mom, this wonderful woman named Lindsay in Virginia who just just made an appointment for her daughter to get the MMR vaccine. Said that if you could imagine every step you take in life in the public having a nagging thought in the back of your head being like okay this is this is it. It's happening measles is in the air the particles are in the air this is when my daughter is getting measles.

She said like anytime she wanted to trip anytime she was in a rest stop anytime she was in a grocery store like those thoughts would occur to her.

And I think that that's an incredible amount of anxiety to live with.

It's kind of reminiscing for me of like the gay HIV experience like I'm yeah right like if you feel like it's always or you know not now anymore like thanks to prep and like these medical advances but like that's true.

“That's why I don't know maybe that's like an apt parallel kind of that like there is a lot of uptake on the on prep and these kinds of drugs because like you don't want to feel like that.”

Yeah exactly like you it's it's just true. It's true peace of mind I guess and it's a matter of like okay what am I scared of more. A potential adverse reaction from a vaccine or the diseases that vaccines prevent. And so I think that's one way like the pendulum can swing backward but I think in general so much trust has been lost and frankly like. In four years. I don't can't imagine the degree to which Trump and RFK will have just like confused people yeah.

Was there anything else from the unlearning woman that you feel like you that struck you as far as like motivation or was it was fear really the motivation.

I think it was fear of the of the kids getting sick multiple months I talked to just described like this anxiety and fear of being like is my kid going to get sick because I've chosen not to vaccinate them and just having that nagging thought in your head. The.

“Really kind of like potential aha moment.”

We know everything about the back end and the front end. And so it was like in the forebeying the online shop.

I feel like I'm deep in magic world like I knew you're in three-price I you know I get a lot of like magic content. I don't get any more hot content rather this is another universe from me like altogether so I'm just kind of curious even spending a lot of time on the last few months.

“Like is there anything like a sense of betrayal or like backlash to RFK because I mean he's doing what he said on the vaccine stuff like not really on the food.”

And like a lot of agricultural kind of discussion about how like the big ag companies won the internal dispute over you know Mahah issues and the administration.

I was kind of curious like broadly if there are any other like recent political developments you noticed. You know it's interesting I don't really see a ton of discussion in Mahah's spaces of RFK himself and like of what he's doing policy wise and maybe I was in the wrong parenting groups or something but. I feel like in a way the entire movement and the coalition of Mahah and the attitude and the sensibility and the lifestyle is bigger. And I think it's so built on distrust of mainstream authorities that like there aren't any expectations in a sense for Kennedy to like yeah. I don't know I mean that's my sense my sense is not like people are like okay is Kennedy going to deliver of course.

For the true antivax heads they're like we need him to deliver on stuff but I didn't even have too many conversations with people about Kennedy you know I know he's like in the atmosphere like for example like Leo was kind of constantly posting stuff to her Facebook including some stuff about. RFK and from children's defense fund but I didn't hear a lot of moms talk about what they expect from his administration so I didn't see any I didn't hear any backlash. So in some ways that's upsetting because I do think there is some backlash on like the Mahah activist group because they have actual things they want it which is a different category of people than just Mahah moms and in Facebook check groups right but I can other ways I think that is.

So again like presents opportunity it was not like an unnatural thing pre-COVID for a democratic politician to be out there being like you know we really shouldn't trust these big pesticide companies and the big farm a company is like we should make sure that they're rules around them and like we should really do healthy eating a famous first lady did something like it feels like recaptureable to me but maybe that's wrong I don't know maybe it's not.

“I think that's right I just struggled to imagine what it would look like and sound like you know like what would it mean for democrat to as he say recapture.”

Mahah. I had Mary Ann on the show. Oh my god. I know it's good obviously it's just some things I'm like I really found a little cookie but like. She was pretty good on this I don't know. What did she say what was her main thing was just talking about how the democratic party was like not listening to what like to the real concern to these moms had and like I don't know I just it was because RFK was so fucking pernicious on the vaccine stuff. And and because of like the way when around about business it was really hard and you can relive history and say like maybe come a lot or buy it and should have tried to keep them in the tent but I think it was going to be really hard to do it.

I people would say that I think missed the factory was already basically out of the tent but the time he was pretending like head they called him like you might have made a difference like I don't think I really don't think of what I will never know yeah maybe some people know but RFK you could use that model and like incorporate someone who is more who is woohoo and be like I'm not going to put this person in charge of the nation's health but like their ways to engage.

Right. So I mean I looking at it's Rob sing and it's really like I don't know if this is true right like and so this is where I think it's maybe possibly like cancer I know this is true cancer is really on the rise and I would disproportionately other states.

There's conversations about whether that's pesticides or that's the water you know getting the water and all this stuff and he's running on that and like that's.

“And that's scientifically based I don't know if there are ways to do it agree and I think even Bernie Sanders did a lot of this in like 2020 specifically in just highlighting stories of how people have been kind of like screwed over by.”

You know the health care industry or the pharmaceutical industry in some way which you would think it might be a little bit different after covid but I don't really recall it being a big issue in 2024 on the democratic side. I don't really remember buying a comma going there. I mean, don't say they did it because they did what I like. I don't know what I mean. He wasn't focused.

On and there are about 2013. We are now on the right side. The biggest advantage of Shopify for me is that we have no technical requirements for the company. We all know about the background and the front end and so on and so on. Then where are the platforms, that's actually crazy. They are just the big ones. Our whole business has gone beyond Shopify. Let's start now at the cost of the test of Shopify.com. I want to talk about a couple of other stories since you've been at the New Yorker here at the New Yorker now.

When I met you, you're a buzzfeed girl. So, you know, it's a big, the authority to have you on the path is I'm honored. But before we talk about a couple of other stories really quick, there was one thing that gave me a little what the fuck in this story that I wanted to tell people.

That's one of you to tell people about which are aggro hoods.

I did not know about aggro hoods. You don't like that. What's up with that? You say that. You say the words are fine. That's it. I don't know how to pronounce it.

Like aggro hoods. Okay, so aggro hoods are kind of like wellness minded communities where you can. Like it's literally a community like a cul-de-sac. It is literally a neighborhood community kind of subdivision type deal. Like, subdivision isn't sound like a very maha description, but for lack of better terms subdivision. Yeah, there's a couple.

I tried to interview them for my piece, but they didn't get back to me.

So, if you're listening to get back to me, they've been going around in an RV touring all of the aggro hoods in America.

And like giving little videos synopsis of like one for each.

“I think they all have a slightly different flavor.”

Like perhaps some are more quote unquote maha traditional than the than others. But yeah, you can buy house and live and like do, you know, I don't know, natural cooking classes and have your kids. The neighbors with other kids that are living in top non toxic homes, you know. What an amazing country. We live there.

There's so much stuff out there. I don't know anything about. Yeah, so the aggro hoods that I featured in the piece called Serenbe. And it's right at Atlanta. And it's founder recently claimed that none of the kids living at Serenbe have asthma because they live this like non toxic lifestyle.

Maybe meaning none of them do have asthma. That's kind of interesting. I don't. Doesn't that could not just be just like random chance, though? I don't know.

It could be a good thing. It could also be like. None of my friends in chat as well. Yeah, I also don't have asthma. So because of the 11th.

She's. I don't know.

“It's going to be a giant classic asshole.”

I know. I mean, no. I mean, my mom cooked. Which is nice. But she cooked with like plastic spatula, that's a huge number.

Oh, we definitely had plastic spatula. Okay. So you've got micro plastics in your body. I don't want to know where the micro plastics are. I want to.

Hard pivot to a couple of your other stories. And then we're going to close by playing two twists and a lie ourselves. Okay. So get ready for that. Two of the articles recently.

One. I want to talk about because I just just talk about the scale of the ice operations. You're doing a lot of ice reporting like my six months ago before we move to the map. And I feel like I talk about it as about as much as anybody I try to. Because it's just, if it's so fucking in ragey to me.

And yet like I was going back to your old stories and you told the story of this Miramar Martinez. Well, I don't think I even mentioned. Which I like talks about kind of just there's like it's hard to keep track of kind of the scope of what they're doing with the deportation campaign. But for folks that like me like needed to be refreshed on that story.

Yeah, so it's funny because I wasn't as familiar with her story either.

“But it really set the playbook for everything that we saw in Minneapolis later with outspready.”

And Renee Good. She was a woman in Chicago who was living in the south side in a community that was sort of like on the watch for ice during. The surge there. And this was in the fall of 2025. So so yes, so a few months before the surge of Minneapolis.

She had been sort of like following the ice surge there hadn't really gone to protest or done anything like that.

But with sort of like on the watch in her neighborhood trying to warn sort of neighbors to be on lookout for ice agents.

She's American citizen, by the way, and she's young woman. She's 31. So she's driving one day sees an unmarked Tahoe.

“Knows immediately that it's DHS starts following the Tahoe, honking her horn and rolls down their window.”

Start shouting, "Let me grow the Negro to warn neighbors." And eventually, like, as we've seen happen again and again, these car-related incidents turn daydress. They get into sort of like a tense kind of standoff in the road. They're going side by side. We know from body cam and footage that there were three border patrol agents in the Tahoe that are feeling like they're getting quote unquote boxed in.

And the two cars, I don't want to say collide because they really like side-swept. But, after contact is made, the border patrol agent driving the Tahoe stops the car, gets out of his car, and fires five times into Merema Martinez's car. And she shot.

First off, she could have died easily. She didn't.

But, after this incident, she is almost immediately described by DHS, which at the time was still being run by Chrissy Nome as a domestic terrorist. And is smeared and charged with assaulting a federal officer. Which again, like this is the playbook. Yeah, Trisha McLaughlin, afterwards said that she was armed with a semi-automatic weapon. Not that she had a pistol in her car in her purse. I love that those are the second amendment people now. It's good for everybody to hold a weapon, except for protesters protesting nice.

Yeah, she had a small handhold pistol in a pink holster at the bottom of her purse, which she carried everywhere with her. So, Trisha said she was armed with a semi-automatic weapon. She's a domestic terrorist. She said that Martinez wrote a post that said, "Hey, to all my gang. Let's fuck those motherfuckers up. Don't let them take anyone." That was not her. She'd mixed her up with another Latina woman apparently. Cash, but tell, shared a video of a black SUV, ramming an agent's truck saying it was Martinez.

That was not her. That was a different video at the time that you had to start a call of this post remained online. So, like that was just, again, a total preview of everything we saw. It's good and pretty. Like a situation where it's totally unnecessary. But everything about Martinez behavior, like an agent of the state totally unnecessary and irresponsible to fire the weapon five times. There's no need to do that. That's not protocol.

I've had FBI and law enforcement agents on to talk about that. And then, obviously, it's grotesque for them to government to lie and smear the person afterwards. But it's exactly what they did to her naked then. Right. It's exactly what they did to Renee Good and Alex Prudy.

“I think the speed with which it happened in this particular case was really alarming.”

It was like hours, you know, without, of course, any investigation into what happened. I'm sure without all the evidence being collected in terms of, like, well, we know that some of the agents hadn't, you know, fully been debriefed. So it's just like this was a preview of what happened in Minneapolis, the difference with Martinez is she lived to tell the tale. And she found how difficult it was to defend yourself when the federal government is coming with the full heft of the federal government at you,

not just with criminal charges, which were later dropped. But just in the court of public opinion, like it turns out, it's really hard to defend yourself when, you know, people at the highest levels of government are calling you a domestic terrorist. This woman was a young preschool assistant teacher. Crazy. Crazy.

The other thing that I just rereading it, like just, you can see how they've changed the tactics now, right?

And then the government goes all out. They did the snuff films, right?

“And like that was part of the effort to get people to self-deport, honestly, like it was part of the whole mission.”

And like now a year later, you know, they're still, as we've been reporting on a bunch, the last couple weeks, like still grabbing people, but they're doing it in like such and more low keyway. To literally prevent this, like what they don't want anymore is the Murray-Marm Martinez. They don't catch it injured, but they don't want the, hey, I'm warning people in the neighborhood, the tactical change because it prevents what we saw in Chicago and Minneapolis. Like community action is harder when it's happening, kind of under the radar.

So, yeah absolutely. On and there are about 2013, we're about to continue. The biggest advantage of Shopify is that we don't need any technical requirements for it. We all know about the background and the front end. And as soon as they go to Dubai, the online shop. We're shopping in Farad, then we're going to get the platform that's actually Farad.

They're simply the main team, and our whole business is going to be shopping in Farad. So, yet, stay in constant laws and test of Shopify.com. You also did a Ken Martin take out a profile on my guy, Ken Martin, DNC chair. Some fine journalism. Do you want to take down? No, take out. Take out.

I don't know.

John Favre did to take down, I think, which you reported on, man, it's tough.

I don't know, you know, I look at the Ken Martin thing. And this is going to feel really mean to him because I do not mean this in about his morality or integrity. He's right. He's right. He's right. Like, I worked for rights. And it's the same.

“He's just, like, a democratic rights pre-bus.”

And, like, obviously, then rights through as it becomes, and it will, to evil after I quit working for him. I'm not saying that that was why. I don't know what you're saying. I don't know what you're saying.

I don't know what you're saying. I don't know what you're saying. I don't know what you're saying. I don't think Ken Martin would do that after this. But just in, like, in this modern, it's different.

Like, you talk about Terry McCollough to the different style of chair he is. Like, a Terry McCollough would do well in this day and age. I think in any day and age. It's like, there was this old model of party chair that, like, they were the state party chair in some place in the country,

and then they come to DC, and they focus on the operations, and they're behind the scenes, and they're a pleaser, and every, you know, they do a good job of making all the activists happy. Like, it's just a different job now. And, um, I don't know, stuff.

It's not, not done the same fun, but I don't know. I also think, like, everyone is very clear that things are not going well there. So this is not to excuse Ken. Right. You know, no one's excuse in Ken, but, I mean, there's no world in which this whatever makes sense.

But like, if I were in that world, I've never do that job ever, ever, ever.

Like, I used to cover the DNC a lot, which was a kind of curse assignment, because everyone was always sort of in chaos somehow. Which is like, so I've my impression. I've never covered the RNC, but you tell me, my impression was that, while the DNC was always like kind of floundering and behind in fundraising,

but also like, there were some small scandalous, like threatening to upend their meetings, and which were open press. The RNC was like, top down. Everything went out was supposed to.

No one was really allowed to access. No, you know, debates on the floor about like, Israel, that's true. Except for the tiny window where I was there, which we could blame on me. But in the Bush era, it was very tight. And then in Trump one.

But in that inter-period, where the party is having this tumult, the RNC was reflective of it.

“And I think that's what we're seeing into DNC.”

And I remember being the spokesperson, and being so mad, because I'd be opposite of you during this tiny window 2010, 2012, of like being so mad, like, why are we doing open meetings, where we discuss birthright citizenship, or whether Obama was born in Kenya?

And I was like, why don't we tighten this fuck here up a little bit? Because like, rights wanted to appease everybody, and please everybody, and so you wanted, you know, the crazy Ron Paul people to have a say.

And so it's funny. I get a little bit of trauma, like watching the DNC meetings, because it's what I was supposed to manage and fail. Like it's tough. And part of it is I think Ken needs to tighten the ship up,

because it's like, people that very strong views on this issue, won't like this view, but it's like, the DNC delegate meeting is really not the place to discuss like the two states. Like it's like, it's not going to get resolved here.

And like, it only is going to enrage people who are on the opposite side of wherever you land. And so like, why are you doing it, you know? But like, they can't help themselves. They can't, they can't. And God bless.

But I mean, as time when Trump is doing things

why is there not more energy and creativity around, like how to respond to this moment?

“That's what puzzled me in dipping back into this world”

very briefly before X-raying myself to go back to my parenting, this from Chats. You previously in previous life, at the Washington Post wrote a great profile of my friend, Carrie Lake. Our friends. And our friend, we got to spend a lot of time together

when we were in Arizona, which I miss. And one of the stories that you, I think, I believe the headline of the lead of it was that like, with Carrie Lake,

the camera's always on because our husband

was camoring her. And subsequently to that, I had two encounters with her, which shows you the Carrie Lake, the power of that strategy, where she secretly videotaped me. Only released one of them, because she was kind of drunk,

and it was embarrassing. The other one, and she didn't really nail me. So that video remains on her husband's phone somewhere. But the other one, she released a secret fishbowl camera of me. This is like a year after your article as hell.

I kind of remember this. It was so crazy. She touched me. She touched me and I was like, please don't touch me. Yes, yes. You weren't like a convention or something. Yeah, she was speaking with a side room.

She was like, I agreed to do this if it's in the side room. And that I've learned why because they have like rigged a camera system into that. Anyway, she's a cookie character. I don't know why don't you go to Jamaica and visit her.

So one fun fact about this. Yeah. Every person I talked to who was in Carrie Lates previous life when she was a television anchor. Told me how much this woman loved Jamaica. No.

Yes, I've been looking for a place to like, you know, no one tweets anymore. I'm scared of Twitter. So I can't tweet this. I guess I can talk about it here. And you're reporting for the profile? Yes, I've talked to all of her former colleagues at this new station where she was working

in Phoenix. You know, they all have really interesting stuff to say about Carrie.

Like, and one of the things that they told me a lot of them brought it up was that she was always kind of taking vacation

and she would just like disappear and it made things people were kind of, you know, rolling their eyes about it. Like, oh, Carrie's often vacation and she would go to Jamaica. Like, she loved Jamaica. Everyone referenced how much she loved Jamaica. I'm telling you.

“So when I saw this, why was it there? Is it the weed? Is it the dan, the meat?”

I don't know. My impression. My impression. John was, my impression was like, she and her husband just connected with the place. I don't know if they have a familial connection. I don't know if like, there's any other connection.

I didn't really like to Jamaica, but they were always on Jamaica. So when I saw that she was appointed ambassador, right? She's ambassador to Jamaica. Yeah. I was like, you know what?

It all comes back. So she asked for this. She said, she got to Mr. Trump and beg for it.

She had evolved the countries in the world.

I want to make it. No, okay, to be clear. I don't know if she asked. Okay, but I think so. We can impute that.

You're a journalist. I don't talk to you in a long time. Yeah. But she was like, she went to Mr. Trump and she begged. Like a dog.

I don't know if anyone cares. But like, you know, it would be interesting to ask. But she loves Jamaica.

“So I was like, oh, you know, you should be happy.”

The New Yorker should send you to. Absolutely not. I don't know. I feel like there was a moment where. Do it.

I do it. I need this. I need you to send Ruby to my friend. Yeah, I'll go. It would be like the Jerry Springer show.

You're like interviewing her. You're like, I pop up from the side. The thing about you being secretly, secretly videotaped by Kerry Lake and the difference between that and maybe videotaped by Kerry Lake is so vast.

Like, you really held your own. You were like, don't touch me. I would have been like, I couldn't handle it. I just like withered under this. Video-taping thing.

Like, we also went into a side quote unquote side room for it. This interview. And when we walked in, she had cameras set up everywhere. And I was like, are you filming? Are you going to film this?

I kind of asked in the sad way. Do we really have to do this? I'm not comfortable on camera. Yeah. In that way, you know, I'm not like a.

Yeah. I don't know. You're right. I'm just trying to do this story. Anyway, it was wild.

But we love Kerry. And we had such a good time in Arizona together. It was a character. I'd pitch them back when I was riding before I did a daily podcast. I'd pitch them because we'd had somebody back before.

So I was like, it would be, once it was over.

Like, she didn't win. But like Trump won again.

“And I was like, I want to do a story where I like sleep over at her house.”

Like, not in her bedroom. But like, in a guest room. And I kind of want to wake up and have breakfast with Kerry. And just like, are you like this? Yeah, exactly.

Like, I want to know what she's like at breakfast. Like, do you have the makeup on still? And, and are you, and they all assured me that like, no, I'd breakfast. She is talking about election fraud. I'm like, maybe.

I don't know. I'd like to know. But I didn't have anything to do. Kerry, so. I just want to add one more thing about Kerry.

Like, is that it was. She had this like, cadre of young men around her working for a year. Yeah. And in it, in an effort to immerse myself in the world. Like, I went out with them one night to just try to, like, you know.

Yeah. I was trying to negotiate this in her real. That then happened in the side room.

These kids I've never seen vaping.

Zins. I tried to zin for the first time almost fainted in the back of the Uber on the way back. To my hotel. From the zin. Yeah.

Don't try as in for the first time. I mean, I'm a stranger to nicotine. Like, that was like, whoa.

“I don't really, I think it was, I don't even think it was Zin.”

I think it was off market. You know, like, gas stations in or something. Well, it was wild anyway. So maybe we can, yeah, we can replay that in Jamaica. I'd love to do that.

We're closing with two trips in a lie. It's that. This is what we call for brain closure to the podcast. You know, we started and we're closing with two trips in a lie. Would you like to go first or me?

Um, I'll go first. Okay. It's a my theme to choose a lot. Okay. It's my theme.

So I have ordered natural all cure style supplements served to me via Instagram ads. Okay. I have watched every documentary available on all streaming platforms about twin-flame unions. I know that doesn't sound mahothin, but it is because one of the characters in the mahotha custody piece is a like expert on twin-flames.

So I have watched all twin-flame documentaries and I have consumed raw milk. How many twin-flame documentaries are there? There are a lot. I mean, there are at least there are definitely two main ones.

But I, there might be a third somewhere out there.

I, oops. The questions have you consumed raw milk for a story? Or did you actually get the natural supplements for Instagram? That, that seems to be the crux of the question for me. Well, I do.

“I think that you have not done raw milk.”

You're correct. Oh, yes. I would try it, though, for sure. Have you tried it? I don't even know.

I would not. But the vibe is okay. Freaked me out when I first saw it. I first learned about a new hand libertarian new ham sure when I was out there working for John Huntsman and we're driving around to the other sunday.

I'm doing raw milk on the side of the road. I was like, what? I thought up until that moment. I believed milk to be raw. Like, I don't know.

I'm not a farmer. Okay. I grew up in the suburbs. I have a real time. Huntsman, just finding out.

Yeah. He was explaining to me. I was just like-- Yeah. And I was just like, oh, that's weird as fuck.

But he's like those are people. Anyway. Um, here's mine. Okay. I didn't take the flu shot for many years because one year it seemed to make me sick.

Okay. So I was a little bit of a flu shot and anti-vaxxer. Totally got that.

I was one of the first 1200 people in the world to get monkey bucks.

My daughter is only a trip to the emergency room is putting a bead up her nose. And that happened during COVID. A bead. A bead. A bead.

A bead. Ouch. Up the nose. And during COVID we had to mask. Go in and get the doctor there.

Did it go down the-- Right out. We got it out first. Good. It's true.

You've used a lot of detail there. So I know that happened. I think the month-- I don't know enough about monkey bucks to know if this is even plausible. And I'm scared that that could be true.

Yeah. I don't know. But I'm also scared to reveal my ignorance on monkey bucks. Okay. So leveling with you on that.

And then what was the first one? Pollution. Oh. Okay. Okay.

We tried the anti-fax. The monkey bucks thing has to be thick. That has to be the one. That has to be the one. That has to be the one.

I do like departing. I have a good time. But it was a friend of mine. But actually it was one of the first twelve hundred people in the world together. And it's one of my favorite facts about him.

And we won't out. And the god bless him. It was a lot. Okay. Is he okay?

He's great. Yeah. What a great.

He's great.

“One of my other vesties is a infectious disease doctor.”

We got you got on that mother fucker.

He was on that was texting me. Then like, if you got your shot yet, I don't know what you've been doing out there. But he's like, get your shot. He's like, I've been seeing. So I've got I had a lot of I had a lot of connections to early monkey bucks.

Diagnosis went from the doctor and patient side. But you. But you. I was going to preach. You preach yourself out a little bit about the flu shot.

I did.

I and I it my husband hated it.

“He said like, but I don't like the flu shot.”

I think gave me the flu. Like I got it one year and I felt awful afterwards. And I was like, why am I doing this? I'm not going to die from flu. I understand why not.

But I wanted to offer that as a kind of a piece offering to the maha people. Absolutely. Like I get it. I get what I totally get it to. I mean, it gets a little cookie.

You know, when your kids have the measles.

But like, you know, I get the mindset. So it's like, come back and bring baby unlearn. My whole thing. I just want to say one thing also kind of like, indefense of maha is once people get there once they go down.

What someone in the story terms the radicalization funnel. It's like. Look at the environment we're in. Look at the way social media is like permeating our lives. Look at how easy it is to Google something out of fear anxiety about your kid

and then like end up two hours later or deep on a red abort or something. Like look at what Trump is saying from the oval office about that's a vaccine and how children's bodies are being quote unquote pumped with vaccine. You know, all these like really disgusting medicine language. Do you terms to discuss vaccine?

Look at what our case would. How are we expecting people to act or think any differently? I'm just like, I do not. It's kind of a wonder that more people aren't. So I'm mad at them.

I mean, once the kids are tough, the small kids are tough.

“Um, I think that's why I feel like the unlearning question is such the key point.”

Because it's like, and I do I understand. It's just like, I feel like I said it's a lot like everyone can relate to this. In any situation in their personal life, like we've all been dupped or like got our mindset on something. It isn't true or had a girlfriend boyfriend that was an manipulator or whatever. And like had somebody tell you that and you get mad.

Like you get you get your backup like I get that like I get that. And so I understand why trust a science. Like it doesn't work that like something's got to work because it's rough out there. All right. That's Ruby Kramer. What a delight.

Thank you for coming on the podcast. Thank you. And I'm looking forward to whatever you're doing next. We'll do it again. Thanks.

Awesome. Everybody else go listen to the next level. If you want more politics and we'll be back tomorrow with a bit of a double. It's going to be a good one to see you all then. [Music]

The Bull Work Daily is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Anzley Skipper and with video editing by Dante de Chico and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.