Calley Means, a top ally of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has quit the Trump administration amid White House delays in enacting some of the food policies top health officials were seeking.
Means has been a key player in Kennedy’s food agenda and the Make America Healthy Again movement, which formed out of the 2024 political alignment between President Donald Trump and Kennedy. Means was instrumental in setting up a call between Kennedy and Trump shortly after Trump survived an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. The call was part of what led Kennedy to endorse Trump.
“I leave with tremendous respect for President Trump and RFK — two historic figures who are committed to confronting a corrupt D.C. bureaucracy that is doing everything possible to protect the status quo,” he said in a statement Thursday. “The past two years have seen historic policy and cultural change to confront the chronic disease crisis and healthcare incentives that profit from us being sick. This movement is in the first inning and just getting started.”
The Wall Street Journal first reported his departure.
During the last two years, Means has helped push efforts to get food companies to drop synthetic dyes and a proposal to tighten a decades-old loophole that allowed food companies to put certain chemicals in their products without first notifying the nation’s food regulators.
He has also been a vocal advocate for states to adopt rules barring soda and candy from the nation’s food stamps program, which has been broadly opposed by the anti-hunger community but received mixed opinions from nutritionists.
The Department of Health and Human Services and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Plans to potentially ask food companies to produce detailed safety studies showing that certain ingredients common in ultra-processed foods are generally safe has been slow-walked by the White House, The Washington Post previously reported. Over the summer, federal officials were seeking to release information around a standard definition of ultra-processed foods, but doing so was delayed at the last minute.
“Special interests and corporate capture were preventing real progress,” Vani Hari, an author, activist and Kennedy ally who also writes under the name “the Food Babe,” wrote in a text message. Hari has also been a major player in the MAHA movement and an ally of Means.
HHS has previously said the notion that Kennedy’s food agenda has been “stalled or slow walked is false.” The White House previously said that the administration “continues to work closely with stakeholders and industry leaders to continue overhauling our country’s food and updating nutritional guidance.”
His sister, Casey Means, was Trump’s second pick to become the surgeon general. Trump dropped her nomination as her bid stalled in the Senate this spring.
Means’s departure comes as other officials aligned with the MAHA movement have left, been ousted or didn’t see their nomination get over the finish line in recent months. In February, the White House and HHS shook up the health department’s leadership team in an effort to quell internal fights ahead of the midterms.
On Thursday, the Annenberg Public Policy Center released survey data showing that about a quarter of Americans say they support the MAHA movement, with about three times as many people saying they share the movement’s food-related concerns.
“Regulating chemical additives in food was the leading priority for MAHA supporters, nonsupporters, and those unsure about MAHA,” Annenberg said of the survey data. “Removing highly processed foods from school lunches also ranked near the top for all three groups. Banning glyphosate was also a top priority.”
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