A year after Donald Trump said Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could “go wild” on health, the president has been pulling him back. The BBC reported in April 2026 that cracks have appeared in the partnership between the two men.
They built an unusual coalition in the 2024 campaign. Kennedy fronted the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement, a riff on Trump’s “Make America Great Again,” and brought in mothers, tree-huggers and health enthusiasts who cared about vaccine hesitancy, nutrition, environmental safety and chronic disease.
The glyphosate order
The strain showed this month after Kennedy faced several days of questioning in Congress from lawmakers on both sides. Several raised his statement supporting Trump’s executive order to increase domestic production of glyphosate, an herbicide his health-conscious base has long fought, arguing it causes cancer.
Hawaii Democrat Brian Schatz put it bluntly: “I’ve got a lot of friends back in Hawaii who supported you because of issues such as this, and they were hurt, shocked, confused.” Kennedy answered, “I was very clear with the president about my own displeasure with the executive order. The president felt it was necessary for national security.”
Zen Honeycutt, founder of the MAHA-aligned group Moms Across America, said many mothers were “outraged.” She said it seemed to her that chemical companies wrote the order. Still, she added, “I do not doubt his commitment to the health and safety of our children.”
Jeff Hutt, a former national field director for the MAHA Institute, said, “I don’t think he had a choice.” He described Kennedy as more of a spokesperson than a decision-maker. “Kennedy only has so much authority at HHS,” Hutt said.
A Politico poll found that 47% of voters who call themselves MAHA do not think Trump and Kennedy have done enough, against 44% who think they have. An HHS official told the BBC that losing access to pesticides would have a “severe” economic security impact on agriculture.
Vaccines pushed aside
Once in office, Kennedy moved fast on vaccine policy. He fired the members of the committee that recommends shots and replaced them with several vaccine sceptics. The panel stopped recommending the Hepatitis B vaccine for all newborns, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cut the number of recommended childhood immunisations. Kennedy also ousted CDC leader Susan Monarez, who said she refused to rubberstamp the panel’s recommendations.
All this came during the worst US measles outbreak in decades, with over 4,000 cases reported in 2025 and 2026 and two children killed in Texas.
In March, a judge halted much of the policy, ruling that the panel’s members lacked credentials. HHS indicated it would appeal but had not yet done so. Kennedy allies told the BBC the Trump administration told him to pivot away from vaccines before the midterms. Republican pollster Whit Ayres called vaccine scepticism “political poison.” In April, Kennedy told Congress every child should be vaccinated against measles.
Back to food and chronic disease
Kennedy has returned to chronic disease, food and environmental safety. He remade the American food pyramid, to mixed reviews from public health experts, and tried to persuade corporations to drop synthetic food dyes voluntarily. HHS said his team stays “focused on the priorities Americans consistently say matter most to them, including chronic disease prevention, childhood nutrition, food quality, and affordable health care.”
Next come a swing-state tour in the autumn, as Politico reported, and a podcast of “fearless conversations with critical thinkers, including independent doctors.” He has also announced a new initiative to research the effects of microplastics.
Ayres doubts it will work: “Kennedy is so widely associated with anti-vaccine advocacy that it’s going to be difficult for him to redefine himself in any other way.” Abby McCloskey, an advisor to Republican campaigns, said what is missing is the next suite of concrete policy items.
