Trump Admin Engages in Cover-up for Taylor Farms
Taylor Farms contributed $2 million to Trump and Republicans as they postponed a rule to help the government limit the spread of foodborne illnesses. a lobbying group that Taylor Farms belongs to successfully pushed to delay a rule that would have helped the government more quickly trace contaminations back to specific locations – which could have helped prevent the illness at hand, cyclosporiasis, from proliferating into thousands of cases nationwide. The Trump administration moved to delay the tracing rule last year. Several days later, Taylor Farms donated $1 million to a pro-Trump super PAC. That summer, Taylor Farms contributed another $1 million to House Republicans’ super PAC, and a few months later, Republicans in Congress enshrined the rule delay as part of a funding bill. Source: zeteo.com/p/taylor-farms-trump-donations-explosive-diarrhea
Taylor Farms Spent Big on MAGA and Anti-Regulatory Lobbying Before Diarrhea Outbreak
The company donated more than $3.6 million to conservative groups between 2020 and 2025, including $1 million to the MAGA Inc. super PAC.
Per the above article: “Taylor Farms has apparently taken issue with the CDC’s and FDA’s handling of the investigation into the current cyclospora outbreak, which has sickened thousands of people across multiple states. The company recently claimed that the FDA “apologized” after announcing a false-positive test of a sample of Taylor Farms’ lettuce; the FDA told reporters that no, actually, an official apology never happened. (The company did not respond to WIRED’s requests for comment.)
Prior to the false positive and the non-apology, Taylor Farms executives met with White House and FDA officials to discuss what a spokesperson for the company called “shortfalls” in the government agencies’ response. The New York Times reported that the meeting followed Taylor Farms’ recent hire of Trent Morse, the former deputy director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, who left the Trump administration to start a government relations firm in September”.
