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One of America’s largest produce suppliers visited the White House days before the administration walked back a warning suggesting the company’s lettuce could be linked to an outbreak of explosive diarrhea.
Executives from MAGA-donor Taylor Farms met officials from the White House and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last Thursday, July 16, one day before it issued a voluntary recall of lettuce sourced from Central Mexico that linked it to Cyclospora, the parasite that has caused a nationwide outbreak of diarrhea, nausea, and fatigue.
Federal investigators traced the outbreak to restaurants including Taco Bell, which gets its lettuce from Taylor Farms.
But in a bizarre twist, the lettuce supplier issued a statement on Sunday saying the FDA had apologized after it emerged that tests of lettuce had resulted in a “false positive”.
“Yesterday, FDA informed Taylor Fresh Foods that one of its iceberg lettuce products from central Mexico tested positive for cyclospora. Today, we were informed that FDA made a mistake, and this was a false positive,” the company said in a statement posted on X.
“To be clear, at this moment, FDA has not identified a single positive product test result for Cyclospora… Recalled product was limited to iceberg lettuce grown and processed in central Mexico. All other Taylor Farms products, including all Taylor Farms brand products available for purchase, are not involved in the recall.”
The unusual public declaration quickly fueled an online frenzy about the company’s political connections. Records show the company gave a $1 million donation to the pro-Trump super PAC MAGA Inc. in 2025.
This came less than a week after the FDA said it would delay the implementation of a food traceability rule that would have added more regulations to businesses manufacturing, processing and packing of foods.
The company and affiliated entities have also donated to President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the late Lindsey Graham and other Republican candidates, as well as Democratic candidates and committees.
While there is no evidence the White House meeting changed the government’s response, critics remained highly skeptical on Monday.
“Forgive me for not trusting anything y’all say,” wrote one observer on X.
“Just leaving this here,” wrote another pundit, with a copy of the company’s MAGA Inc donation as reported in FEC filings.
The company has yet to respond to questions from the Daily Beast. However, a Taylor Farms spokeswoman earlier told the New York Times that company representatives met with White House and FDA officials to discuss what it viewed as “shortfalls in the FDA and CDC’s outbreak response process” and ways to improve future public health responses.
The spokeswoman said executives also challenged investigators’ conclusion that Taylor Farms’ lettuce was responsible for the outbreak and sought to distance the company from the illnesses.
She added that although federal officials had been investigating the outbreak for weeks, Taylor Farms was only contacted in the days immediately before the recall was announced.
The company has also expanded its influence operation in Washington, recently hiring former White House official Trent Morse.
The Daily Beast has also reached out to the White House, which referred all questions to the Health Department, as well as the FDA, which is yet to respond. However, the authority also put out a statement on Monday trying to address the questions sparked by its false positive.
“To clarify, this false-positive lab sample DOES NOT change the basis for FDA’s ongoing outbreak investigation or the overwhelming epidemiological data supporting the current voluntary recall by Taylor Farms,” the FDA wrote.
“Over the weekend, FDA alerted Taylor Farms that a new sample of shredded lettuce from Taylor Farms de Mexico tested positive for Cyclospora during import examination at the Southern Border. This ended up being a false positive, and Taylor Farms was alerted to the corrective test result Sunday.”
