Ken Cook Is Having Another Episode

Renew Democracy Initiative

Rina Shah: Principles over power Apr 07, 2026

Show notes

What does it look like to stand on principle when everyone around you is playing it safe? In today’s episode, Ken sits down with Rina Shah, a political commentator, GOP strategist, geopolitical risk advisor and one of the most recognized Republican voices on national television.

As a former senior Capitol Hill advisor and two-time presidential campaign chief spokesperson, Shah spent years appearing on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and nearly every major network covering politics and global affairs. But long before the television appearances and the op-eds, she was the daughter of a Ugandan refugee family that lost everything under the brutal dictatorship of Idi Amin. That experience shaped everything about how she sees leadership, power and democracy.

Shah shares her family's remarkable story of survival, why she recognized the echoes of authoritarianism in President Donald Trump long before most were willing to say it out loud, and what it cost her to become the first elected Republican delegate to publicly challenge Trump’s nomination in 2016. A decade later, she's still a Republican, still speaking out, and still refusing to let the party she loves be defined by fear and silence.

For a deeper dive into today’s discussion:

Rina Shah’s Instagram

Ken Cook Is Having Another Episode every other week.

Chellie Pingree 1st District of Maine

Democrats were MAHA before MAHA — Rep. Chellie Pingree unpacks the contradictions Mar 24, 2026

Show notes

Long before “Make America Healthy Again,” or MAHA, existed, there was Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine): A self-described hippie, back-to-the-lander, certified organic farmer, and the first woman ever elected to Congress from Maine's first district.

Since taking office in 2009, she has relentlessly fought pesticide preemption, championed SNAP benefits and school nutrition programs, and pioneered legislation on food waste and organic agriculture. She’s been fighting for healthier lives long before MAHA was a movement.

Now MAHA has arrived, promising to achieve in a news cycle what Pingree has spent decades trying to accomplish legislatively. MAHA Action's president recently sent a memo to Republican Party leadership calling the movement “a once in a generation political gift to the GOP" and pledging $100 million to elect Republicans in the midterms.

Meanwhile, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. once a prominent voice against toxic pesticides, now celebrates executive orders by President Dinbaly Trump expanding glyphosate production, even as former pesticide lobbyists take key positions at the Environmental Protection Agency.

MAHA was pitched as a bipartisan effort – but reality tells a different story. In today’s episode, Ken talks with Pingree about the contradictions between what the administration says on MAHA and what it’s actually doing on policy.

And that’s the real divide: between those doing the difficult work of governing and achieving real results, and those packaging that work into snappy branding and social media posts. One is measured in years of policy fights and incremental wins. The other is measured in headlines and clicks. Yet only one of them changes the law to protect the public.

For a deeper dive into today’s discussion:
Make America Healthy Again? Let’s see if they’re serious

In betrayal of MAHA, House GOP farm bill exposes kids to pesticides

For a deeper dive into today’s discussion:

Make America Healthy Again? Let’s see if they’re serious

Chellie Pingree 1st District of Maine

In betrayal of MAHA, House GOP farm bill exposes kids to pesticides

Ken Cook Is Having Another Episode every other week.

https://www.davidagraham.com/work

David A. Graham on Project 2025's assault on American government Mar 10, 2026

Show notes

Most people heard about Project 2025 during the 2024 presidential campaign. Far fewer understood what it actually was. The Atlantic’s David Graham wrote the definitive book explaining the sweeping conservative policy blueprint.

In today’s episode, David speaks with Ken on how what seemed like a Republican policy wishlist was actually a meticulously engineered, four-part plan for seizing control of the federal government.

They discuss how DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency) helped accelerate the wrecking-ball agenda, why the architects of Project 2025 always assumed Congress would capitulate to their plans, and whether the damage being done to American institutions can ever be undone. The conversation helps us understand what the 2028 presidential election could mean for the project’s next chapter.

For a deeper dive into today’s discussion:
https://www.theatlantic.com/author/david-a-graham/

https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-project-how-project-2025-is-reshaping-america-david-a-graham/afe80d453ffedb79?ean=9798217153725&next=t&next=t&affiliate=2186

Ken Cook Is Having Another Episode every other week.

EWG’s Dirty Dozen Guide to Food Chemicals: The top 12 to avoid
EWG’s YouTube
Alexis Temkin, Ph.D.
EPA warns farmworkers about risks of Dacthal
60 Minutes (CBS; 2/26/1989)
National Research Council (US) Committee on Pesticides in the Diets of Infants and Children

REVISIT: Protecting children from pesticides Mar 04, 2026

Show notes

Many people find EWG while seeking information about pesticides. In today’s episode Ken is joined by our in-house Senior Toxicologist, Dr. Alexis Temkin whose research establishes safety guidelines to help people (including children) minimize their exposure to toxic crop chemicals. In the second half of today’s episode Ken is joined by renowned pediatrician Dr. Phillip Landrigan whose decades of research and advocacy is integral for understanding the effects of pesticides in children.

We see this episode as Pesticides 101, to help give our audience agency over how they (and their families) are exposed to pesticides. Our government isn’t doing enough to protect us from harmful chemical residues often found in healthy foods like fruits and vegetables. Until that changes, we’re grateful for the work of Dr. Temkin and Dr. Landrigan that has helped people, including parents and caregivers, better understand how they can take steps to reduce their exposure to pesticides while eating plenty of healthy fruits and veggies.

Want a deeper dive on today’s episode? Check out the links below:

EWG’s 2024 Dirty Dozen

EWG’s 2024 Clean 15

Food Quality Protection Act Signing

Safe Drinking Water Act Signing

Children and Environmental Toxins: What Everyone Needs to Know®

Project 2025's "Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise (contributed by NPR)

Ken Cook Is Having Another Episode every other week.

The plastics problem Feb 24, 2026

Show notes

We’ve all seen the headlines about micro and nanoplastics. It’s clear that the public is uneasy with the ubiquity of plastic particles in our food, soil, and water. The plastics and petrochemical industry claims that concerns are overblown. A growing group of scientists and researchers disagrees.

Multiple interdisciplinary studies are beginning to discover the impacts micro and nanoplastics may have on cardiovascular and brain health.
Ken is joined by Matthew Campen, PhD, MSPH, the Director of the New Mexico Center for Metals in Biology and Medicine at the University of New Mexico, to discuss his findings and to help unravel what the science says.
For a deeper dive into today’s discussion:
Matthew J Campen, PhD, MSPH
Bioaccumulation of microplastics in decedent human brains
‘A bombshell’: doubt cast on discovery of microplastics throughout human body
Microplastics and Nanoplastics in Atheromas and Cardiovascular Events
Ken Cook Is Having Another Episode every other week.

‘City slicker’ farm payments top $2B – and House GOP bill would make problem worse

Rep. Jim McGovern on ending hunger in the richest country in the world Feb 10, 2026

Show notes

48 million Americans are food insecure, congress just cut $200 billion from SNAP, and the upcoming farm bill could make things even worse. But Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) believes we have an opportunity to fight back.

McGovern joins Ken in today’s episode to break down what's really happening with America's food assistance programs, why new work requirements are kicking struggling families off benefits, and how farm subsidies enrich corporations while small farmers go bankrupt. Whose interests is Congress really serving?

While special interests are already lobbying hard for the next farm bill, McGovern believes people power is more powerful than the people in power.

If we can find billions for bailouts of Argentina and tax cuts for billionaires, but claim we're too broke to feed hungry Americans, we should probably check our math.

For a deeper dive into today’s discussion:
EWG’s Farm Subsidy Database

The cruelest farm bill ever
Ken Cook Is Having Another Episode every other week.

Gov. Newsom signs nation’s first law to require tests of prenatal vitamins for heavy metals

Hilary Swank fights for transparency in baby products Jan 27, 2026

Show notes

Motherhood was a wake-up call for Hilary Swank, as she learned about the toxic chemicals lurking in everyday products we trust to keep our babies safe.

In today's episode, Ken sits down with the two-time Academy Award-winning actress and film producer to discuss how becoming a mom transformed her understanding of just how toxic our world is for the most vulnerable among us.

Last year, Hillary joined Ken at the California State Capitol to fight for passage of SB 646, a crucial prenatal vitamin safety law. She opens up about the shocking moment she learned that prenatal vitamins aren't required to be tested for heavy metals, her partnership with Healthy Baby (the first EWG VerifiedⓇ diaper), and why she'll show up “time and time again” to protect not just her children, but all children.

From her first-ever lobbying experience to helping pass the groundbreaking SB 646 in just six months, Hilary is on a mission to make the world safer for the next generation.

For a deeper dive into today’s discussion:
EWG Skin Deep - Healthy Baby

EWG Area's of Focus: California

Ken Cook Is Having Another Episode every other week.

Trump’s EPA Could Limit Its Own Ability to Use New Science to Strengthen Air Pollution Rules

What happens when the EPA stops protecting the environment? Jan 13, 2026

Show notes

Just one year into the Trump administration, the onslaught of attacks on the environment and public health is staggering. The Environmental Protection Agency is leading the deregulatory charge with policy actions that will lead to more pollution.

To help understand the full scope of the damage, Ken in this episode speaks to environmental law expert Joe Goffman. He served as assistant administrator for the EPA's Office of Air and Radiation during the Biden administration. Goffman also played a key role in writing the landmark 1990 Clean Air Act amendments that strengthened U.S. air quality law.
With his work on virtually every major air quality law and rule over the past 35 years, Goffman is uniquely qualified to unravel the full extent of damage that the EPA is doing to our air, water, and health.
For a deeper dive into today’s discussion:
Joseph Goffman, Executive Director of Harvard Law School's Environmental & Energy Law Program
MAAHA: EWG’s ‘Make America Actually Healthy Again’ agenda for EPA Administrator Zeldin

EPA’s Goffman lashed out at ethics charges

Ken Cook Is Having Another Episode every other week.

Food Intelligence: The Science of How Food Both Nourishes and Harms Us

Understanding the toxic food environment with Julia Belluz Dec 30, 2025

Show notes

Julia Belluz, co-author of "Food Intelligence: The Science of How Food Both Nourishes and Harms Us," joins Ken to dismantle everything you think you know about nutrition, metabolism and weight loss. Julia is an award-winning health journalist, contributing opinion writer for The New York Times, and former senior health correspondent at Vox. She's a Knight Science Journalism Fellow from MIT and currently lives in Paris, France.

Julia explains why our struggles with food aren't personal failures. They are the predictable result of living in toxic food environments designed to make us overeat. Drawing on decades of nutrition science research conducted with co-author Kevin Hall at the National Institutes of Health, she reveals what people get wrong with food despite thinking they’re doing it right.

Julia compares France's deliberate cultivation of healthy food environments to America's chronic disease crisis. She discusses California's groundbreaking legislation defining ultra-processed foods, the promise and failures of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s "Make America Healthy Again" agenda, and why we need systemic change to how we approach food.

For a deeper dive into today’s discussion:

EWG's food policy work

California's ultra-processed food law
Ken Cook Is Having Another Episode every other week.