Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appears to have been welcomed back into the spotlight.
For months, rumors have swirled that the health secretary, 72, has been muzzled by the White House amid concerns that his vaccine conspiracy theories and radical health views could further devastate the GOP.
But with the midterms fast approaching, the White House appears willing to try almost anything.
Last week, the failed presidential candidate launched The Real Food Show, an initiative to encourage families to cook healthy meals for less than $5 a serving. (In 2024,Forbes estimated his net worth at around $15 million.)
Joined by celebrity chef Andrew Gruel, Kennedy, 72, set out to cook wild Alaskan salmon with a white bean, apple, and arugula salad “at an affordable price” in its first episode.
And late Wednesday, the health secretary announced he was rolling back regulations for Head Start, a federal program that serves some 700,000 of the country’s neediest children, in an apparent effort to curry favor ahead of the midterm elections.
Head Start, which offers support including childcare, vision screenings, speech and language assistance, and roughly two-thirds of each child’s daily nutritional needs, has generally enjoyed broad bipartisan support since its creation six decades ago. Kennedy said the Trump administration is cutting federal oversight so the popular program can align more closely with states’ ideologies, making him the frontman of a major initiative that could move the needle in the midterm elections.
Kennedy Jr.’s front-facing presence appears to be a last-ditch effort to appeal to voters in the final months before November, when Republicans are projected to lose congressional seats.
The White House has changed its tune compared to just months ago. In April, for example, Bloomberg obtained an internal memo circulated to Kennedy’s health officials this year that cautioned that the secretary and his aides should steer clear of “Red light” issues such as efforts to overhaul vaccine standards.
Instead, 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 came as Trump reportedly began to view his 72-year-old official’s agenda as leaps and bounds too far. In March, 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.
Still, MAHA has become a crucial—if not indispensable—voting bloc for Republicans, a movement that Kennedy now leads.
