In 2024, Brett Favre sat in front of a congressional committee that was looking into the misuse of money meant for Mississippi's poorest families. It was at that hearing — the hearing about the welfare funds — that Favre revealed he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

Months later, a freshman congressman from Arizona picked Favre as his partner for a national program to make American children healthier.

What they announced

On March 24, 2025, Abraham Hamadeh and Favre co-wrote a piece on the conservative sports site OutKick announcing what they called the Congressional Fitness Challenge — a revival of the old Presidential Physical Fitness Test, in which kids ages 6 to 17 would run a mile, do pull-ups and do curl-ups, and get a certificate signed by members of Congress.

Hamadeh's framing was that this must become part of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s "Make America Healthy Again" movement. "Once upon a time, the Presidential Fitness Test was a badge of honor," he and Favre wrote. "Just like generations before us, today's kids deserve the chance to test themselves."

Getting kids moving is a fine idea. The problem is everything around it.

Who Hamadeh chose to stand next to

Here is what the record says about Favre and the Mississippi welfare money, as ESPN laid out:

• A state audit found $77 million in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families money — money meant to help poor families with children — was misspent in Mississippi.
• $1.1 million of that money went to Favre for speeches the state auditor says he never made.
• $5 million of it went to a volleyball facility at Southern Mississippi, where Favre's daughter played.
• In May 2022, the Mississippi Department of Human Services sued 38 defendants, including Favre.
• Favre repaid the $1.1 million, but the state auditor demanded another $228,000 in interest on top, which Favre did not pay up front.

Favre denies wrongdoing and has not been criminally charged. Other officials in the scandal have been.

That's the man Hamadeh chose to help him sell a program about children's well-being — a scheme that took money away from needy children being the thing at the center of it.

The part that makes it worse

Hamadeh isn't a bystander on the question of government money going where it shouldn't. He has made it his brand.

The Phoenix New Times described him as having "been cheering billionaire Elon Musk and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency as they bumble through federal agencies in search of 'fraud, waste and abuse.'"

So the same congressman who applauds DOGE tearing through federal agencies looking for misspent dollars picked, as his public partner, a man sued over the misspending of $77 million in aid for poor families. When it's a federal agency, Hamadeh wants the axe. When it's a Hall of Fame quarterback, he wants a photo.

Meanwhile, Arizona's kids lost their food

Here's the part Hamadeh's constituents should hold onto.

Three months after announcing a program to get Arizona kids running the mile, Hamadeh voted for Trump's budget bill — the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," passed July 3, 2025.

What that bill did to Arizona children:

• More than 400,000 Arizonans — including 180,000 children — have already lost their food benefits since the bill took effect. Arizona has seen the nation's biggest drop.
• In Arizona, 1 in 5 kids already faced hunger every day before that.
• More than 300,000 Arizonans will lose federally subsidized health coverage under the same bill — one of the worst hits of any state.

You cannot make children healthier by taking away their food and their doctor. A certificate for doing pull-ups does not replace dinner.

And Hamadeh didn't just vote for it quietly. He told his own constituents in a press release that the bill contained "no cuts to Medicaid" — a claim PolitiFact rated false, with the Congressional Budget Office estimating the bill cut $911 billion from Medicaid.

This is a whole genre now

Republicans have gotten comfortable talking about kids' health while cutting the programs that actually feed kids. In Nebraska, Governor Jim Pillen turned down $18 million in federal money to feed hungry children over the summer, saying "I don't believe in welfare". In Congress, Republicans voted to shove billions in food-stamp costs onto the states, putting millions of people's food at risk.

Hamadeh's version is just the most photogenic. And the full bill for Arizona — health coverage, food aid, jobs, energy costs — is something we've added up in one place.

What we're actually asking for

Nobody objects to a fitness challenge. What we object to is a congressman who:

• Cheers a hunt for "fraud, waste and abuse" in federal spending, then chooses as his partner a man sued over the misspending of $77 million meant for needy families;
• Announces a children's health initiative in March, then votes in July for a bill that has since stripped food benefits from 180,000 Arizona children;
• Tells his own constituents the bill had "no cuts to Medicaid" when independent fact-checkers say that's false;
• And has never held an in-person town hall where any Arizonan could ask him about any of it — more than 200 constituents once showed up to one he refused to schedule, and he didn't come.

A certificate signed by a member of Congress is not health policy. It's a press release with a stopwatch.

We deserve better.

Source

Arizona Rep. Hamadeh, disgraced QB Favre team up on health program — Morgan Fischer, Phoenix New Times, March 24, 2025. Photo: Phoenix New Times.