Blanche Scoffs at Allegations Wiles Stymied MAHA at Behest of Food, Drug Companies

Attorney General Todd Blanche laughed off a query about whether he will investigate the former White House Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles, over allegations that she used her position to block “Make American Healthy Again” policies and appease drug and food companies for whom she lobbied and from whom she fundraised. Speaking Sunday, the attorney general said he was not going to take seriously allegations made by a former Trump administration official, Calley Means, who resigned in protest last month, and spoke out about Ms. Wiles on a popular podcast Friday.“Something that someone says on the podcast? No, I do not listen to that. Absolutely not,” Mr. Blanche said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” He said that Ms. Wiles, who was moved on Friday from her post to President Trump’s political team, did an “extraordinary job” as chief of staff. “The fact that a disgruntled former administration official comes out and says something against, whether it’s chief of staff Wiles or somebody else, that cannot be something that causes me to react in any way,” Mr. Blanche said.Mr. Blanche added on Fox News saying that “blind” or anonymous reporting is marring Ms. Wiles’ reputation and “the rhetoric is absolutely not true.” “I know Susie. I work with her everyday. Every day she fought for the American people, and fought for President Trump,” he said. Mr. Means, an entrepreneur who hocks health and wellness products and formerly consulted for food and pharmaceutical industries, resigned as a senior adviser on healthcare and nutrition policy for the Health and Human Services Department late last month. Speaking on the “Joe Rogan Experience,” on Friday, he accused Ms. Wiles, who formerly worked for lobbying firm Ballard Partners, and her daughter Katie Wiles, who works at Continental Strategy, of having food and drug companies pay for access through their firms. “It was an open discussion in the White House. If a company hired Susie’s daughter, then that was getting a high priority,” he said, sharing a chart from lobbying and fundraising tracker the Center for Responsive Politics, which showed Continental Strategy shooting up to more than $35 million a year in revenue in 2026 from less than $1 million in 2023. Ballard Partners also earned more than $186 million in the past two years compared to $35 million in the two years prior. “So if you’re a special interest and you want to get something done, the secret’s out. You pay Susie’s daughter. … If you hire Ballard, you get a meeting with Susie and you can get things done.”Mr. Means also accused the head of political operations, James Blair, of taking money from the sugar industry and Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio of accepting funding from pharmaceutical companies and Pepsi. As a result, he said, department regulations and congressional laws on ultraprocessed foods have been held up because it polled poorly.“The key thing Susie did is, from almost day one, we made the midterm strategy, the policy strategy. So they would often say that we can’t do certain things because that would hurt special interest configurations for the midterms,” he said.Ms. Wiles has not publicly commented on the allegations. Following Mr. Means’ appearance, he said he received multiple texts and calls from Ms. Wiles and Mr. Blair threatening lawsuits. While challenging them to find inaccuracies in what he said, he also said he will “vigorously correct and apologize for any misstatements” if he made any. “If you want to file a lawsuit and get into discovery of whether it’s provably true that Ballard and Continental had an undue influence on the White House policy process, do it,” Mr Means posted on X, calling for “an honest accounting” of the last two years. He later added that he wants Ms. Wiles and others to “preserve all potentially relevant records and communications,” including lobbying access, meetings, policy decisions, and corporate clients, including Bayer, sugar and food industry representatives, and officials involved in the administration’s glyphosate executive order. The order, issued in February, protected manufacturers, in particular Bayer, from a yearslong lawsuit on whether its Monsanto-produced weedkiller Roundup caused cancer in thousands of individuals who used the product.While Mr. Means struck a defiant tone in his remarks on the podcast, he exonerated President Trump from the allegations, saying he does not believe the president realizes the extent of the pay-for-play. He added, “It is absolutely true that his administration has been infiltrated by the very people that he energized voters to say he would get out of D.C.”Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who spent much of his career suing Monsanto and other glyphosate makers, on Friday said that “draining the swamp is a mandate, and we have an obligation to deliver,” but emphasized Trump administration achievements without mentioning the dispute.“I stand firmly behind President Trump and the historic reforms we are advancing together,” he wrote noting the role that food companies played in establishing new federal dietary guidelines, removing petroleum-based synthetic dyes and other additives, reviewing chemicals in the food supply, and voluntarily notifying the Food and Drug Administration of ingredients “they independently deem safe.” “These are concrete steps toward accountability that Americans demanded,” Mr. Kennedy adding that “there’s still more work to do,” including on ultraprocessed foods.

Blanche Scoffs at Allegations Wiles Stymied MAHA at Behest of Food, Drug Companies

Blanche Scoffs at Allegations Wiles Stymied MAHA at Behest of Food, Drug Companies

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