HHS chief took to social media with deference to president after ‘Trump’s Rasputin’ said he was plotting move
The US health and human services (HHS) secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, has fended off an attack by conservative firebrand and Donald Trump influencer Laura Loomer by issuing a statement of fealty to the president which calls it “a flat-out lie” that he is running for the White House in 2028.
Kennedy, 71, had been under pressure since Loomer, 32, expressed concern in a recent Politico interview that Stefanie Spear, a top aide of the HHS secretary, was trying to “utilize her position to try to lay the groundwork for a 2028 RFK presidential run”.
Loomer’s vigilante pressure campaigns within the White House have cost a number of Trump administration figures their jobs, including customs and border protection official Monte Hawkins as well as Food and Drug Administration vaccine regulator Vinay Prasad.
Hawkins had been accused by Loomer of having an “anti-Trump, pro-open borders and pro-[diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI] bias”. And she had labelled Prasad a “progressive leftist saboteur” before he was later reinstated by the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles.
