The White House and former officials denied allegations that top officials crafting policy sought or accepted money from industry.
Allison Schuster, a White House spokeswoman, told The Epoch Times in an email that “The Trump Administration has never allowed and will never allow outside groups to influence policy decisions.”
She said that President Donald Trump “is busy executing on his America First agenda that includes the largest working-class tax cuts in history, over a million private sector jobs added to the economy, a sealed shut border, and … violent crime to the lowest level in nearly a century.”
Calley Means, until recently a top adviser to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)—and a former White House official—had said in recent interviews that Susie Wiles and others in the White House chief of staff’s office were pushing policies that didn’t align with the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, such as authorizing fruit-flavored vaping devices.
Means said on Joe Rogan’s podcast on Nov. 6 that special interests were aware they could hire Ballard Partners, where Wiles used to work, to secure a meeting with Wiles.
He also said that ahead of the midterm elections, he was told certain things could not be done because they would hurt special interests.
“Calley, we can’t do this. I need sugar money,” Means quoted Wiles as saying. “I need the money from the sugar people to win the midterms.”
“There is a very concentrated group of people in the Trump administration that are antagonistic to what people voted for,” Means said. “And frankly, I think it’s very clear, are doing things for other reasons, particularly in many cases to enrich their families.”
Means said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” over the weekend that special interest groups could pay money to Continental Strategy, which employs the daughter of Wiles, to influence policy.
The FDA approved Moderna’s mRNA flu vaccine in August, the first of its kind licensed in the United States, after Dr. Marty Makary left as commissioner. The approval drew criticism from the MAHA community, including former government vaccine adviser Dr. Robert Malone.
Makary did not remark on the vaccine but told CBS that the tobacco industry “exploited their connections to administration and HHS officials to put repeated pressure on me to approve fruit-flavored vapes that appeal to children—I wouldn’t do it.”
“The Kratom/7-OH lobby ran the same playbook to undermine my efforts to make this new ‘gas station heroin’ illegal. As FDA commissioner, I always rejected political corruption just as voters across the political spectrum did last week,” he added.
Wiles, who just departed the chief of staff role, could not be reached. She told CBS that she was not involved with a tobacco industry meeting with Trump at his golf club, which took place before the administration unveiled a new tobacco policy, and said Trump “did more for MAHA than any president before or likely any president in the future.”
Continental Strategy said the allegations were false.
James Blair, former White House deputy chief of staff, said on X that many of Means’s allegations were false, including that he had policy decisions going through him. He said he was considering a lawsuit.
Brian Ballard, president of the lobbying firm, said in a statement that Means made false claims about Ballard Partners. He said that the firm’s interactions with Wiles as chief of staff “have been limited and have been the exception, not the rule.” Its work for most clients does not involve the White House and is usually handled at federal agencies and in Congress, he said.
Means said on X that Ballard and Wiles “have yet to dispute a single assertion I have made” and said Ballard’s statement corrected assertions he did not make.
Means said in the interviews that he did not believe Trump fully knew what Wiles and her deputies, including Blair, were allegedly doing. He said Trump wanted to advance MAHA priorities such as cleaning up pesticides and making food healthier, and he praised Kennedy, with whom he said he worked closely.
An HHS spokesperson declined to comment on the allegations from Means. The spokesperson pointed to a Nov. 6 social media post from Kennedy in which he said he stood behind Trump and the reforms they are advancing together.
“In less than two years, this administration has rewritten federal dietary guidelines to emphasize real food, secured commitments from major food companies to remove petroleum-based synthetic dyes and other additives, launched systematic reviews of chemicals already in our food supply, and proposed requiring companies to notify the FDA before introducing ingredients they independently deem safe. These are concrete steps toward accountability that Americans demanded,” Kennedy wrote. “We have hundreds of other accomplishments but there’s still more work to do.”
In a separate post, Kennedy thanked Wiles for what he described as her wisdom and calm and inspiring leadership. He said Wiles brokered his partnership with Trump and oversaw the transition effort, including helping him bring on “an extraordinary cadre of brilliant and disruptive leaders into HHS.”
We had a problem loading this article. Please enable javascript or use a different browser. If the issue persists, please visit our help center.