'White House Betrayal: How Susie Wiles Blocked the MAHA Agenda'

 by Paul Thacker

MAHA advisor Calley Means goes on the record, detailing how campaign checks killed health reform inside the Oval Office.

MAHA advisor and close supporter of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy gave an explosive interview on the Joe Rogan show criticizing a slew of White House officials he claims blocked or delayed popular health initiatives to appease industry donors. Means resigned as special advisor at HHS a couple weeks before the midterms and took direct aim at Trump’s chief-of-staff Susie Wiles, claiming she has a near-absolute grip on policy to repeatedly block or delay MAHA initiatives to protect industry donations.

Wiles is a highly influential Republican political strategist and industry lobbyist who spent over a decade with the lobbying firm Ballard Partners. After Wiles ran Donald Trump’s successful 2016 presidential campaign in Florida, she teamed up with Brian Ballard to open Ballard Partners’ highly lucrative Washington, D.C. office in 2017. She joined Mercury Partners in 2022, where she remained until Trump selected her in 2025 as White House chief-of-staff.

Although the timing is likely not connected, the day after Rogan released his interview with Means, Wiles left the White House. The Means interview bounces around for almost 2 hours, but here are some highlights.

“We need money for the midterms,” Means said Wiles told him repeatedly.

Means said that Wiles opposed measures to reduce sugar in children’s diets, citing the need for sugar-industry donations ahead of the midterms. She also pushed for more flavored e-cigarette approvals—a priority for tobacco companies that donated heavily to the GOP—and relaxed proposed restrictions on kratom products, sometimes called “gas station heroin.”

Wiles and her team prioritized fundraising from pharmaceutical, pesticide, tobacco, and other special-interest sources over the administration’s stated health priorities. The White House is dominated by former lobbyists who slow-walked voter-backed reforms while publicly claiming support, Means said.

Corporate influence from the vaping and big tobacco industries corrupted health policy at the highest levels, Mean explained. Despite the rampant and disastrous impact of childhood vaping, the White House pushed a loophole to approve fruit-flavored vapes because industry was funneling massive amounts of money to top lobbying firms, including Ballard.

James Blair, a key White House policy gatekeeper, explicitly weaponized upcoming midterms to push this agenda, absurdly framing the relaxation of vape restrictions as a core political issue. When then-FDA Commissioner Marty Makary stood his ground and resisted loosening standards that protect children, he was fired.

Makary was replaced by Heidi Overton, who “did whatever Suzy wanted”, Means said, and immediately drafted a policy to relax flavored vapes regulations.

I spoke to two people who said they ran into Means a day or two before he resigned and said that he was furious about the White House decision to delay a new definition for ultra-processed foods.

Means said he had successfully aligned academic institutions, medical associations, and government agencies to pass two major priorities: a simple, non-regulatory definition of “ultra-processed food” and a nutrition reform package for school lunches to replace sugary breakfasts with protein.

However, food industry lobbyists resisted and contacted high-level White House officials, including Wiles, stating the changes would hurt their sales.

Means said he spoke with a lobbyist for Oreo the policy and told him, “We have a mandate behind us, this is an administration priority, we’re gonna get it done.

The lobbyist replied, “I’m gonna call Susie.”

Pollster Mark Mitchell backed up central claims made by Means on his own podcast. Mitchell is a close advisor of Vice President JD Vance, who invited him to the White House to brief Trump about his waning support. Mitchell said that Susie Wiles warned him last year after he criticized Pfizer on X. “You know, Ballard Partners’ number one client,” Mitchell said.

https://disinformationchronicle.substack.com/p/white-house-betrayal-how-susie-wiles