Consider Robert F. Kennedy Jr. unleashed.
Muzzled earlier this year by White House officials uneasy with the health secretary’s fringier views, the Trump administration is now trying to leverage Kennedy and his Make America Healthy Again movement for Republicans ahead of the midterm elections.
“They’ve given him flexibility to be himself and do his Bobby Kennedy thing,” one senior administration official told The Washington Sun.
Earlier this year, rumors flew inside and outside the administration that Kennedy would be ousted after the midterms. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, was seen as a possible successor, according to multiple political and career staffers.
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Instead, control over Kennedy’s messaging has loosened in recent months as part of a concerted effort to put the health secretary out front, which sources in the administration say is being driven by President Donald Trump himself.
The relationship between Trump and Kennedy is “very strong,” a second administration official familiar with their relationship said. “Bobby doesn’t push super hard on it, but they have a very strong relationship.”
Better known and better liked by American voters than other members of Trump’s Cabinet, Kennedy is being deployed to election hot spots more than others in Trump’s orbit. He has visited Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Colorado, Texas and other states where Republicans are clinging to House and Senate seats.
Trump is cheering Kennedy’s unorthodox views. The president has urged quick results from Kennedy’s probe into autism and vaccines. Kennedy has been given license on new initiatives to address vaccine injuries. Neither Trump nor his aides pushed back publicly when Kennedy promised an anti-vaccine group last month that the administration would investigate electromagnetic fields and chemtrails.
“You have a strong and steadfast friend at the White House,” Kennedy told the group last month.
Perhaps most tellingly, the president effectively rubber-stamped Kennedy’s efforts to change the childhood vaccine schedule with an executive order in August.
“I think Trump sent a message” with that executive order, said Del Bigtree, who served as communications director for Kennedy in his 2024 presidential campaign and runs the anti-vaccine group Informed Consent Action Network. “I think it was a huge move in imbuing confidence in Bobby that he could push forward with the work he’s trying to do.”
Trump’s recent moves bode well for Kennedy’s future in his administration after an initial turbulent period where Kennedy struggled to put out fires and started some of his own. In his first year, his tampering with vaccine policy inflamed tensions at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, whose director was fired after just a month, prompting the resignation of other top CDC officials.
It also marks a shift in the Trump administration’s political calculations regarding Kennedy and the MAHA movement from that of a possible liability to a possible asset.
Earlier this year, influential White House aides tightened their hold on Kennedy’s messaging, pressuring him to stay away from vaccine statements and instead focus on unprocessed foods and exercise. The administration elevated former Medicare director Chris Klomp to chief counselor of the Department of Health and Human Services in an effort to stabilize things.
The White House didn’t want Kennedy to draw in bad press. It killed a digital and TV ad campaign for his much advertised “Take Back Your Health” initiative, nervous it would generate negative attention in light of former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s scandals. But quietly and behind the scenes, Kennedy’s allies inside HHS continued their efforts to investigate vaccines.
There was good reason to be concerned: Majorities of Americans said they disapproved of how Kennedy was handling his job, particularly disapproving of the administration’s approach to vaccine policy, according to a KFF poll conducted in January.
Republicans did commend Kennedy for broadening their coalition in 2024 to include a coveted group of swing voters that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic: mothers who grew disillusioned with the medical establishment.
“What was frankly a brilliant strategy to gain women voters has turned into a nightmare coalition for [Democrats],” said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake.
Kennedy’s tirades against food additives and pesticides resonate with voters in both parties. And he’s slightly less disliked than other national GOP politicians. In a recent Harvard-Harris poll, 43% of voters viewed him favorably, compared to 41% for Trump and Vice President JD Vance and 38% for Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Republicans still aren’t overly eager to talk about Kennedy, whose propensity for conspiracy theories leaves some squeamish. His changes to vaccine recommendations and appointment of vaccine-skeptical researchers has frustrated some Republicans, although most have held their fire.
Five House candidates and two gubernatorial candidates whose districts and states Kennedy visited this year did not respond to an interview request from The Sun. One declined. But Rep. Tom Barrett, a Republican who hosted Kennedy in his toss-up Michigan district in June, told The Sun that the Republican Party is “better off” with Kennedy’s base in its coalition.
“He represents a brand of politics and a constituency that is outside the normal coalition,” Barrett said.
Rep. Richard Hudson, the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, declined an interview about Kennedy. In a statement provided by his spokesperson to The Sun, he said, “Secretary Kennedy connects with independents and former Democrats in a way few people in politics can.”
Trump understood Kennedy’s value earlier this year. “I read an article today where they think Bobby is going to be really great for the Republican Party in the midterms,” the president said during a January Cabinet meeting. “I have to be very careful that Bobby likes us.”
MAHA moms know their power this November, said Zen Honeycutt, founder of the group Moms Across America.
“We are adamant about keeping [Kennedy] in office,” Honeycutt said.
If the White House plans on ousting Kennedy next year, it’s not letting on.
“Make America Healthy Again was not just a campaign slogan — it was President Trump’s pledge to tackle America’s chronic disease epidemic,” said White House spokesperson Allison Schuster. “Secretary Kennedy is rightfully going to tout these victories for the American people and keep delivering more of them in the coming weeks and months.”
James Blair, who is running Trump’s political operation this year, turned to Kennedy in July to pressure a Libertarian candidate to drop out of a competitive House race because Blair heard they respected him, The Washington Post reported.
For Republicans, Kennedy’s value also lies in his unique ability to argue that Democrats have changed. A former Democrat who began building his public profile as an environmentalist before leading an anti-vaccine group, he spent much of his 25-minute speech at the Republican midterm convention excoriating Democrats for turning into the party of “Big Pharma, Big Tech, Big Ag, Big Food, Big Insurance.”
“I realized many of the foundational values of the Democratic Party had found a new home, and it was the Republican Party,” he said, to cheers.
That type of message helps legitimize Republicans as a party that isn’t just the old GOP but one with a new influence and energy, said Charles Eisenstein, who advised Kennedy’s 2024 campaign.
“And just because he’s a Kennedy — that’s in and of itself legitimizing,” Eisenstein added.
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