MAGA Influencers Paid to Oppose RFK Jr. Initiative to Remove Soda from SNAP Benefits

Multiple high-profile influencers associated with Make America Great Again (MAGA) have been accused of taking payments to oppose the Health and Human Services (HHS) initiative to remove soda from food stamps.

This debacle started Saturday when a thread on X from Nick Sortor appeared to show several influencers were accepting compensation for posts made pushing back against the federal government going after soda products being offered through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

“Over the past 48 hours, several large supposedly MAGA-aligned ‘influencers’ posted almost identical talking points fed to them, convincing you MAHA was out of line for not wanting soda purchases with food stamps (SNAP),” Sortor writes.

Sortor includes screenshots featuring what appears to be an instruction sheet. He told the Daily Caller inside sources provided him the screenshots of emails and texts allegedly sent to influencers.

The influencers were allegedly paid to “help push back against government overreach.” They were also told they’d be paid from several hundred to a thousand or more for every post they made, according to screenshots from Sortor.

Sortor accuses the influencers of receiving payments from Influencable — a marketing agency that “specialize[s] in high-impact campaigns for public affairs initiatives,” according to a LinkedIn profile.

Users were provided a format to follow for their posts, according to a screenshot. The format appears to call for pointing out government overreach, economic worries, individual rights and choice and President Donald Trump’s famous Diet Coke button.

Sortor suggests Influenceable may have worked with firms like Americans for Food and Beverage Choice and the American Beverage Association (ABA) to launch this campaign pushing back against the initiative aimed at removing soda from SNAP.

The ABA denied allegations that it was participating in a campaign to pay the influencers to make such posts in a X post Monday.

“The suggestion we paid for coordinated influencer posting on SNAP restrictions is false,” the post reads. The ABA also provided this statement to the Caller in response to a request for comment.

“Soda is not driving obesity in America,” the organization told the Caller. “Beverages make up less than 6% of the American diet. While adult obesity is up 37.4% since 2000, full-calorie soda sales are down 22.9% and beverage calories per serving are down 42%. If the two were connected, obesity rates should have decreased with the decline in soda consumption. The fact is obesity is a complex public health challenge and it can’t be solved with a sound bite solution.”

The ABA said restrictions on buying soda through SNAP would not improve health or save taxpayer money.

Sugary drinks are major sources of added sugar in the typical American diet and are connected to weight gain, obesity and other health risks, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Limiting sugary beverage intake can help people keep a healthy weight and improve their diet, the CDC said.

Eri Daugherty, one of the influencers accused of being paid, walked back his post, telling the Caller, “The issue was a topic that I did not do my due diligence in researching before posting, which is my fault.”

He also posted to X, saying his decision to criticize the soda ban initiative was “dumb” and something he would not do again.

Ian Miles Cheong’s post said a “war on soda has begun” and it is not the government’s role to decide what people consume. One user responded revealing an archive of a past post from Cheong that seems to show skepticism of Coca-Cola subsidizing “food stamps.” He claimed companies like Coca-Cola want users to become “fat and addicted” to their products, according to a screenshot.

The thread shows what Sortor claims was another instance of Influenceable participating in questionable activity. He posted screenshots appearing to show a similar campaign meant to push ads against the 2023 movie “Sound of Freedom” — a movie focused on sex trafficking.

Riley Gaines, a pro-Trump advocate and outspoken supporter of protecting women’s sports, alleged she refused when Influenceable reached out to her as well in a post to X on Saturday.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been an outspoken advocate of the Make American Healthy Again (MAHA) movement and has singled out the obesity epidemic in the U.S.

He has previously pointed to SNAP as an area for reform, citing that it is a federal program paid for by taxpayers.

“The one place that I would say that we need to really change policies is in the SNAP program and food stamps and in school lunches because there the federal government in many cases is paying for it. And we shouldn’t be subsidizing people to eat poison,” he said in a Feb. 13 interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham.

Republican Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie — a prominent advocate for limited government — has also supported this measure, citing that taxpayers have no say in how their money is spent by the federal government.

Sortor concluded by saying he would release a second part. He told his followers that part will be a deep dive into Influenceable.