NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spent recent Wednesday showered with praise from the vice president and medical technology executives on a brilliant Make America Healthy Again event in Washington, to celebrate the successes of the Minister of Health and the movement he built.
However, another story of his tenure was playing out online: a small but vocal group of Kennedy supporters and former staffers attacked top Trump administration advisers, saying they were sabotaging his work and distracting MAHA from his original goals.
“MAHA is no longer MAHA,” Gray Delaney, a former Department of Health and Human Services official who was fired in August, said in a podcast interview that day. “I’m not there, but what I’ve heard about what’s going on today is not the MAHA we signed up for.”
The criticism, which became so loud that the health minister took it from social networks to protect his colleagues two days later, exposed the cracks that were beginning to form within his coalition when she accumulates power and expands its scope.
Some of the environmentalists and vaccine skeptics who helped propel Kennedy into politics have grown impatient with what they see as inadequate action on their priorities. They are also concerned that the Ministry of Health appears to be ready cooperate with pharmaceutical companiestechnology firms and other large corporations whose motives they do not trust.
The divisions pose a threat to the cohesion of a movement that has given President Donald Trump an important ally and Republicans access to new group of voters. They come as cracks appear in Trump's own Make America Great Again movement on issues such as Epstein files and the White House focus on global diplomacy.
MAHA is extremely popular among the general public. About two-thirds of Americans said they support Make America Healthy Again Initiative from the federal government, according to Ipsos poll for June.
“MAHA's growth is a sign of its success,” said HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon. “Secretary Kennedy is leading a broad coalition to make Americans healthier through transparency, accountability and measurable results. The message of the movement has not changed, and it is stronger than ever.”
Public health researchers say the genius that fueled Kennedy's movement—a universal call to make Americans healthier—may also be causing conflict, causing competing interests.
“This story is as old as time in politics,” said Matt Motta, a professor at Boston University School of Public Health. “The bigger your tent, the harder it is to keep everyone happy.”
Kennedy, a longtime environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine activist who helped lead the campaign against COVID-19 vaccinations during the pandemic, has taken many steps this year to reduce vaccinations. He pulled out $500 million for their developmentousted and replaced every member of the federal vaccine advisory committee And promised to review the federal program to compensate Americans injured by gunfire. He has also repeatedly disseminated false and misleading information about vaccines while in office.
As recently as this week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made a move that has rattled Kennedy's anti-vaccine base. changed my website to challenge the long-standing scientific finding that vaccines do not cause autism.
But many of Kennedy's supporters in the so-called health freedom movement say that's not enough. Some want punishment for companies that have profited from vaccine and mask mandates during the pandemic. Others want mRNA COVID-19 shots pulled from shelves, despite scientific consensus that they already saved millions of lives.
In their attacks on the administration last week, several MAHA influencers and two fired HHS officials suggested that White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and close Kennedy adviser Stephanie Speer conspired to limit Kennedy's ability to restrict vaccines and crack down on drug companies.
Some Kennedy supporters have seized on these allegations and pointed to Wiles' history with a lobbying firm that worked with Pfizer as evidence that it is trying to undermine his authority. They also shared Spear's social media posts from years ago criticizing Trump.
Kennedy defended his colleagues in two posts on X, saying the MAHA movement has “no better friend in Washington” than Wiles and that Spear has become a Trump supporter.
“Let us focus on our remarkable achievements to date and the monumental work that remains to be done,” Kennedy wrote. “Let's build our coalition, not split it.”
Since the “Make America Healthy Again” campaign debuted last year, Kennedy and Trump have significantly expanded the MAHA tent to include those concerned about the health, nutrition and chronic diseases of Americans.
It has attracted a wide range of audiences, including wealthy ones – including health data startups, artificial intelligence firms, drug makers and even fast food companies. Steak 'n Shake recently advertised fries cooked in beef tallow, saying it was “proud to be part of the MAHA movement.”
At a recent MAHA event in Washington, organized by the pro-Kennedy group MAHA Action, Kennedy and other federal health officials appeared on a stage occupied throughout the day by biotech companies such as CRISPR Therapeutics and Regeneron, brain-computer interface company Neuralink, and various artificial intelligence companies and health care startups. The invitation list raised alarm bells among some longtime Kennedy supporters.
“I wasn’t thrilled with some of the people who were there,” said Leslie Manoukian, president and founder of the Health Freedom Defense Fund, a nonprofit that promotes physical autonomy. “I don't think we're going to make America healthy again with pills, creams, injections, pharmaceuticals, chips, monitors and devices.”
Tony Lyons, president of MAHA Action, told The Associated Press that the strength of the MAHA movement “comes from its openness to ideas, from its desire to include all voices, all points of view, more dialogue, more robust debate.”
“We don’t want to exclude anyone,” he said. “We don’t want to censor anyone.”
Ethan Ogreen, who led Colorado's volunteer efforts for Kennedy's presidential campaign last year, said he was concerned both by the speakers at the event and by Kennedy's recent social media post about meeting with technology company leaders to discuss personal health data.
He expressed hope that Kennedy will fight corruption in America's healthcare system and remove mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 from the market.
“There are definitely some alarm bells going off,” Ogreen said. “The MAHA grassroots definitely don’t trust these corporations, and it’s not entirely clear whether the administration is just getting into bed with them or actually keeping their feet to the fire.”
At a recent Oval Office meeting, Kennedy backed Trump and other administration officials as they touted a deal with drugmakers Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk to expand coverage and lower prices for weight-loss drugs.
Kennedy has previously expressed skepticism about GLP-1 weight-loss drugs and said he wants to focus on the root causes of disease rather than treating populations. But he praised the deal, although he was careful to add that it was not a “silver bullet.”
Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said during the MAHA event that Kennedy's scrutiny of him was “understandable.” He defended the administration using Trump's negotiating plan instead of going “toe to toe with adversaries.”
Some of Kennedy's main supporters said they view the government as a deeply entrenched bureaucracy that will not be easily reformed, even as they hope he can remove toxins from the food supply and environment and further limit vaccinations. Kennedy, speaking to Western governors on Thursday, said he does not intend to deny people access to vaccines.
Jeffrey Tucker, founder of the nonprofit Brownstone Institute, which has secured Kennedy's support, said MAHA activists are idealistic but sometimes naive about the difficulty of government reform.
“It’s very important to stick to your ideals,” he said. “But if all you do is throw rocks, you might have problems.”
Professor Motta said that no matter where MAHA goes next, it is already more important than any single policy position.
“Identity doesn’t go away easily,” he said. “They are deeply ingrained, they are deeply integrated into our sense of self. And I would be shocked if this movement disappeared.”
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Associated Press writer Lynley Sanders contributed to this report from Washington.
