Half of American adults live with one or more diet-related chronic illnesses, and poor diet is the primary cause of ill health in the country, leading to 700,000 deaths annually, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

So what does the Trump administration, under the leadership of America’s junk food president, do to address this issue? Well, for starters, it says fuck the scientists. What do they know? The Trump Administration has made a decision to direct the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture to limit scientific input to the 2020 dietary guidelines. This includes the guidelines with respect to the consumption of red and processed meats, for ultra-processed foods, which account for a growing percentage of calories consumed by Americans, and to the appropriate sodium (salt) levels for different populations.

Almost all dietary and nutritional experts have been recommending that Americans eat less red meat, cut back on their intake of salt, and avoid ultra-processed foods. So to Trump, it makes sense to shun scientific input into this dietary and nutritional research and to, instead, rely on the processed food industry’s lobbyists to influence “healthy” eating recommendations for all Americans.

But isn’t this the way of Donald Trump? He puts former coal, gas, and oil executives or lobbyists in charge of the departments of the Interior, Energy, and Agriculture and he picks a former Big Pharma exec to lead the Food and Drug Administration.

Big Business now runs the American government in the age of Trump. He has certainly been stocking, not draining, the swamp.