Exit Of Rfk Jr. Ally Widens Rift In Gop Tent

Calley Means brought President Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. together. The Kennedy adviser’s resignation Thursday shows it wasn’t a match made in heaven, at least as far as many Kennedy supporters are concerned.

Means’ departure, administration officials said, was the result of his frustration with resistance inside Trump’s orbit to advancing Kennedy’s efforts to discourage Americans from eating junk food.

It’s just the latest evidence that Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again movement is disappointed with the Trump administration. For Republicans, the timing couldn’t be worse. The midterms are less than two weeks away and Democrats are making a concerted push to woo Kennedy’s fans.

“Secretary Kennedy is a hero but his commitments to our movement are being stalled by corporate capture and special interests at the very top of the White House,” Vani Hari, a MAHA influencer who has advocated for years for the removal of harmful ingredients in American food, wrote on the social media platform X Friday.

Democrats are trying to capitalize on the disenchantment. Also on Friday, the Center for American Progress, a think tank whose mission is to help the left hone its policy ideas, released a sweeping policy outline, urging “progressives to reclaim leadership” of the food and chemical safety priorities at the center of the MAHA movement.

“Because of the broken promises of the Trump administration, Democrats have a more open field to attract the MAHA voters who were important to President Trump's election in 2024,” said Neera Tanden, CAP’s president and a former adviser in the Clinton, Obama and Biden administrations.

Means and Kennedy first hit it off after Kennedy heard him on an episode of Tucker Carlson’s podcast in early 2024. Means, who was promoting a forthcoming book on Americans’ health, made the case that Americans needed to eat better and exercise to lose weight, rather than taking weight-loss drugs for the rest of their lives.

The two bonded in a sweat tent at a Texas wellness retreat, and Means joined Kennedy’s presidential campaign. After Trump survived an assassination attempt that July, Means helped arrange a call between him and Kennedy that led, the following month, to Kennedy dropping out of the race and endorsing Trump.

Means accompanied Kennedy to Washington and led a push inside the administration to improve food quality in America by changing dietary recommendations and getting food makers to remove artificial dyes. He also was a vociferous Kennedy surrogate in the press, at Washington conferences and on social media, accusing Kennedy critics of working for the food and pharma industries he blames for making Americans sick.

Means didn’t explain why he resigned in an X post announcing his departure, but said he was leaving “with tremendous respect for President Trump and RFK [Jr.] — two historic figures who are committed to confronting a corrupt DC bureaucracy.”

Allison Schuster, a White House spokesperson, praised Means in a statement to POLITICO, saying he had "done a fantastic job for the MAHA movement. She also defended the Trump administration’s progress on MAHA goals, including updating the federal dietary guidelines, pushing to remove artificial ingredients in the food supply, and investing in regenerative farming.

"The MAHA coalition has found a champion in President Trump… President Trump and Secretary Kennedy continue to work around the clock to deliver more wins for the American people,” she wrote.

Means’ resignation followed the postponement of a meeting he was scheduled to attend this week with Kennedy and White House officials to discuss creating a definition of ultraprocessed foods. “That was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” said one administration official granted anonymity to discuss Means’ thinking.

Another Trump administration official, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said they hoped Means’ departure would galvanize the MAHA movement. “There is much yet to do and there are plenty of powerful people who oppose it,” the official said.

Kennedy and his allies believe that formally defining ultraprocessed foods could redirect Americans’ diets away from foods that the health secretary blames for the country’s chronic disease epidemic. Kennedy first promised a definition would come this spring, but industry pushback delayed the effort.

Sean McBride, a communications consultant whose shop represents food industry clients, said Means’ departure “is another signal that the MAHA food policy agenda is fading rapidly.” He called the agenda draconian. “It puts a lot of restraints and clamps and mandates on our food production that are unwarranted,” he said.

The setback on the ultraprocessed food definition was one of many for MAHA this year, including the White House’s decision in April to withdraw the nomination of Means’ sister, Casey Means, to serve as surgeon general. Casey Means lost GOP support in the Senate after her lukewarm endorsement of vaccines during a hearing and did not have the votes for confirmation.

Many MAHA supporters began to feel disillusioned with the GOP in February when Trump issued an executive order to promote the production of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, the most popular weedkiller in the world. Kennedy and many of his supporters believe it causes cancer, but the administration also backed Bayer, the producer of Roundup, in its successful Supreme Court bid to shield itself from future lawsuits claiming the company covered up cancer risks.

Apart from pesticides, MAHA supporters have also expressed upset with new Health Department nominees, Kennedy’s failure to remove mRNA vaccines from the market and slow progress on food safety rules.

Earlier this month, former Kennedy campaign advisers released a scorecard accusing the Trump administration of breaking its commitments to MAHA. Kelly Ryerson, a MAHA influencer known as “Glyphosate Girl;" Charles Eisenstein, Kennedy’s former chief speechwriter; and Dave Murphy, a former fundraiser for Kennedy’s campaign, supported the scorecard.

"I believed deeply in the promise that MAHA represented… But belief was never supposed to mean blind loyalty,” Tiffany Cianci, who worked on Kennedy’s campaign and authored the scorecard, said in a press release.

David Mansdoerfer, a Health Department official in the first Trump administration, said Kennedy’s MAHA allies were running up against the reality that the GOP tent includes interests that oppose it.

“It is encountering other equally strong and entrenched factions that carry different values and priorities,” he wrote on X.

Cheyenne Haslett and Amanda Chu contributed reporting.