The White House has silenced Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the very conspiracy theories he’s built his brand on.
President Donald Trump, 79, has reportedly moved to rein in his Health and Human Services secretary’s rhetoric on vaccine conspiracies and wildly unpopular and radical health policies in the lead-up to the midterms, which are already expected to devastate the GOP.
An internal memo circulated to Kennedy’s health officials this year cautioned that the secretary and his aides should steer clear of “Red light” issues such as efforts to overhaul vaccine standards, Bloomberg reported on Thursday. The directive targets Kennedy’s hallmark issue, even as he has on drawn sharp criticism from the medical community for weakening programs and vaccine rollouts designed to protect Americans.
Instead, 72-year-old Kennedy, a longtime conspiracy theorist with no background in science, was encouraged to focus on “greenlight” topics, including food quality and fitness, lowering healthcare costs, cracking down on billing fraud, and promoting “gold standard” science, as per Bloomberg. The Daily Beast has reached out to HHS for comment.
The memo comes as even Trump has reportedly begun to view his 72-year-old official’s agenda as leaps and bounds too far. Last month, the Wall Street Journal reported that White House officials are alarmed over Kennedy’s policies threatening Republican candidates in the 2026 midterm elections. Before that, Politico reported that the White House explicitly told Kennedy to steer clear of the more controversial elements of the MAHA, or Make America Healthy Again, agenda.
Roughly two-thirds of Americans still have high confidence in vaccine effectiveness, according to a 2025 survey from the Pew Research Center. Meanwhile, Kennedy, who has earned millions from a nonprofit that has pushed anti-vaccine messaging, appears to be losing support—even from his own base. Roughly half of MAHA supporters think that Kennedy hasn’t made America healthier, according to an April 6 survey from Politico.
It’s been a tumultuous stretch for Kennedy, and it doesn’t appear to be easing anytime soon. On April 14, a biography of the Kennedy scion will hit shelves titled RFK, Jr.: The Fall and Rise. The book, which reportedly features excerpts from Kennedy’s personal diary, according to biographer Isabel Vincent, is expected to delve into his personal life, including his marriage to Mary Richardson Kennedy, who died by suicide in 2012, two years after Kennedy told her he wanted a divorce. He later married actress Cheryl Hines in 2014.
In what appears to be a preemptive distraction from the book, Kennedy announced Tuesday that he is launching a podcast, in which he will have “fearless conversations with critical thinkers, including independent doctors…”
There is no release date for the Secretary Kennedy Podcast. But it appears the “fearless conversations” won’t include vaccine conspiracies anytime soon.
