A former Trump administration health policy adviser said several administration officials, including recently resigned White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, blocked Make America Healthy Again policies by prioritizing industry interests over public health.
Calley Means, a former senior White House adviser and top aide to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said in interviews that former lobbyists inside the White House catered to the vaping, ultra-processed food, pharmaceutical and pesticide industries, citing the need for their money for the midterm elections.
He said he wanted Ms. Wiles removed, pointing to the lack of a federal definition of ultra-processed food and the White House’s push to approve fruit-flavored vapes.
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President Trump announced Friday, the same day Mr. Means’ interview with podcaster Joe Rogan was released, that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller would replace Ms. Wiles, who resigned Thursday night. Mr. Miller takes over Monday.
Mr. Means, who helped found the MAHA movement, resigned from his position on Oct. 22 amid growing frustration over stalled food and health policy reforms within the Trump administration, including delays in defining ultra-processed foods.
He requested that Ms. Wiles and two lobbying firms preserve all “potentially relevant records and communications.”
“In light of suggestions that Susie Wiles and James Blair may pursue legal action over my Joe Rogan interview, I am publicly requesting that she, Ballard Partners, Continental Strategy, and other relevant parties immediately preserve all potentially relevant records and communications,” he said Sunday on social media.
In his lengthy request, the communications he listed cover lobbying access, glyphosate and cancer litigation against Bayer-Monsanto, sugar-industry contributions and efforts to shape MAHA policies such as the proposed federal definition of ultra-processed foods.
Mr. Means said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that former lobbyists near Mr. Trump catered to the vaping, ultra-processed food, pharmaceutical and pesticide industries, citing the need for their money for the midterms.
He also said that Ms. Wiles and “a very close-knit crew” of other White House advisers “were taking money from the industries we ran on fighting against.”
“I think President Trump has been subverted by people that are beholden to special interests and not what President Trump ran on, and what voters voted for,” Mr. Means said.
He said on Mr. Rogan’s podcast that Ms. Wiles told him directly, “I need the money from the sugar people to win the midterms.”
A spokesperson for Ms. Wiles said the accusations were “outrageous, defamatory, and provably false.”
Mr. Means said Ms. Wiles and her deputy, James Blair, repeatedly pushed the Department of Health and Human Services to find a pathway to approve fruit-flavored vapes.
The Food and Drug Administration approved some fruit-flavored e-cigarettes in early May.
Mr. Blair told CBS News he “didn’t promote flavored vaping specifically at all,” adding that Mr. Means misrepresented his role. He said he was tasked with getting the FDA to answer nicotine-product applications within the six months federal law requires.
Also in May, then-FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary was pressed to resign amid reports the White House had pressured him to approve the vapes.
Dr. Makary said in a statement to CBS News that the tobacco industry used its connections to the administration and Department of Health and Human Services officials to repeatedly pressure him, adding, “I wouldn’t do it.”
Mr. Trump signed an executive order earlier this year to boost production of glyphosate, the herbicide in Roundup, which Mr. Kennedy told Congress in March he opposed.
In June, the Supreme Court ruled that Monsanto, now owned by Bayer, cannot be held liable for failing to warn consumers about alleged cancer risks in Roundup.
Mr. Means accused White House policy aide Heidi Overton of working with the Justice Department to urge the court to take the case.
A senior White House official told CBS News that the solicitor general wrote the brief at the court’s request and that Ms. Overton only changed its “tone.” The administration’s court filings took the same position as Monsanto.
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