The Trump administration’s self-appointed MAGA loyalty police Laura Loomer has set her sights on thwarting a possible 2028 presidential run by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
President Donald Trump’s secretary of health and human services ran in 2024 as a third-party candidate before suspending his campaign in July and endorsing Trump in exchange for a Cabinet seat if Trump won.
Although Kennedy has not announced any 2028 ambitions, Loomer thinks he will run, and she’s already taking steps to sink his hypothetical campaign. To do that, she’s going after Stefanie Spear, Kennedy’s principal deputy chief of staff and senior counselor.
“I think that there’s a clear intention by Stefanie Spear to utilize her position to try to lay the groundwork for a 2028 RFK presidential run,” Loomer told Politico’s Playbook.
Spear served as Kennedy’s traveling press secretary and principal communications staffer during 2024.
“I’m not naive enough to think that the president is going to get rid of RFK, but I will say that… there are concerns about some of the staffing decisions over at HHS,” Loomer told Politico.
The far-right provocateur has taken it upon herself to “vet” administration officials’ loyalty, even going so far as to set up an anonymous tip line to gather information about “disloyal appointees, disloyal staffers, and Biden holdovers.”
The president has downplayed her influence in the White House but has fired more than a dozen of her targets.
Loomer has long taken issue with Kennedy, calling him a “Marxist” and a “very problematic person,” according to Politico.
Just days before she decided to go after Spear, Loomer vowed revenge against HHS for deciding to rehire a top vaccine official whose ousting she had encouraged.
After Loomer resurfaced an old clip of Dr. Vinay Prasad saying he had stabbed a voodoo doll to “curse” Trump, the University of California San Francisco oncologist—who during the COVID-19 pandemic took a hard anti-vaccine turn—Prasad was axed despite Kennedy personally lobbying for him to stay.
He was quickly rehired, though, “at the [Food and Drug Administration’s] request,” a spokesperson told The New York Times.
Loomer responded to the new with an irate media post, writing, “In the coming weeks, I will be ramping up my exposes of officials within HHS and FDA so the American people can see more of the pay for play rot themselves and how rabid Trump haters continue to be hired in the Trump administration.”
According to Politico, Spear is an easy target, as she’s not well liked in the White House. She tightly controls access to Kennedy, sources told the outlet, and Trump administration officials worry about her influence over the secretary.
She also has a distinctly un-MAGA background as the co-founder of an environmental news site, EcoWatch. According to Trump, all global energy policy should come down to the words “drill, baby, drill.”
Asked by Politico why she thought Spear was trying to position Kennedy for a 2028 run, Loomer cited “sources in HHS.” A White House official also said they wouldn’t be surprised if Kennedy is weighing a presidential bid, but that nobody thinks it’s “a real threat.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for HHS told Politico, “Secretary Kennedy and his team are laser-focused on delivering President Trump’s promise to Make America Healthy Again — ignoring the Beltway gossip and political crystal-balling.”
A White House official also said in a statement that Kennedy and his team were doing a “terrific job” and fulfilling Trump’s mission to “Make America Healthy Again.”
“Scores of prominent restaurant chains and food brands dropping artificial ingredients from our food supply and historic reforms at the FDA to fast-track lifesaving drugs and treatments prove that the entire HHS team is delivering for the American people,” the spokesperson said.
The Daily Beast has also reached out to the White House and HHS for comment.
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