A top MAHA official has resigned as FDA commissioner before President Donald Trump could fire him.
Dr. Marty Makary stepped down Tuesday after clashing with the White House over approving fruit-flavored vapes, making him the latest MAHA figure to be cast aside by Trump.
The resignation comes amid reports that one of Makary’s top allies, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is being sidelined by the White House.
Trump has already withdrawn his nomination of Casey Means, Kennedy’s pick for Surgeon General, and sources tell CNN that the president is distancing himself from his controversial anti-vaccine Health and Human Services secretary.
Kennedy, the de facto leader of the Make America Healthy Again movement, reportedly had “little role” in choosing Trump’s new Surgeon General appointee, Nicole Saphier, a Fox News contributor who has long criticized Kennedy’s anti-vaccine beliefs.
Makary’s departure is sure to further raise tensions between the MAGA and MAHA movements.
The latter coalition threw its support behind Trump after Kennedy was welcomed into Trump’s inner circle, but insiders, including the longtime Trump biographer Michael Wolff, warn that their loyalty could shift if Trump continues to push policies that are inconsistent with their beliefs.
HHS did not respond to a request for comment about Makary’s resignation.
As he has done with others forced out of his administration this term, including Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem, Trump did not take a swipe at Makary when asked about his resignation on Tuesday.
“Marty is a great guy,” he said outside Marine One. “He’s a friend of mine. He’s a wonderful man.”
Trump later shared a screenshot of text from Makary that served as his resignation letter. Trump wrote in another post that Makary had done a “great job,” adding that he “will go on to have an outstanding career in medicine.”
Things were not so rosy behind the scenes this spring.
Trump pushed the then-FDA head to approve flavored e-cigarettes, arguing it is important to woo young MAGA voters, but Makary blocked the request, reports the Wall Street Journal. He eventually agreed to greenlight menthol-, blueberry-, and mango-flavored vapes from Glas, a California-based vape company, but the damage appears to have already been done.
Makary’s tenure had already been marred by turnover at the top of the FDA. That includes the agency losing Dr. Richard Pazdur, a longtime cancer regulator who cited Marky’s leadership failures as the reason for his departure.
Makary was also called out by experts for spewing nonsense on things he was supposed to be a top expert in, like prescription drug safety.
The official said in January that medications should be available over the counter instead of being prescribed. He said the U.S. should allow “common sense medications that are safe” to be available without a doctor’s visit.
“If you think about it, if a medication is safe, doesn’t require laboratory test monitoring, and can’t be used in some nefarious way, why do we require a prescription?” Makary said during an appearance on Fox & Friends Weekend. “Most of the world does not do that.”
