Allies of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are reportedly worried he is being “marginalized” by the Trump administration.
There are “fears among Kennedy’s close allies that he is being marginalized inside the administration, opening a fresh rift within the nascent MAGA-MAHA alliance,” according to a report from CNN.
The concerns surfaced after Trump’s latest Surgeon General pick, Dr. Nicole Saphier, was announced without Kennedy reportedly having significant input in the decision.
Saphier, Trump’s third Surgeon General nominee in less than two years, was abruptly replaced by Trump’s previous nominee, Casey Means, a close Kennedy ally, fueling speculation about fractures in the MAGA-MAHA alliance.
One unnamed Trump adviser dismissed Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again movement and its influence within the administration, according to CNN.
“I hate to say it, but I think they’re a little bit overrated,” the adviser told CNN. “To some extent, MAHA has always been a paper tiger.”
The White House has pushed back on suggestions that Kennedy is being sidelined, according to a statement provided to CNN. Senior Deputy Press Secretary Kush Desai said Kennedy remains deeply involved in Trump’s health agenda.
“Making America Healthy Again has been a Day One priority for President Trump, and Secretary Kennedy continues to play a central role in the Trump administration’s whole-of-government effort to deliver on the President’s MAHA agenda,” Desai said.
The Independent has reached out to HHS and the White House for comment.
Saphier, who was a longtime Fox News contributor and a radiologist, had previously criticized Kennedy and the Trump administration over its controversial warnings about Tylenol use, in since-deleted social media posts.
In a Truth Social post last month, the president described Saphier as “a STAR physician who has spent her career guiding women facing breast cancer through their diagnosis and treatment while tirelessly advocating to increase early cancer detection and prevention, while at the same time working with men and women on all other forms of cancer diagnoses and treatments.”
Trump also praised the longtime television talking head as “an INCREDIBLE COMMUNICATOR, who makes complicated health issues more easily understood by all Americans.”
