The Latest MAGA Feud, Explained

Topline

Trump loyalist Laura Loomer is openly campaigning to blunt Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s influence in Trump’s orbit, claiming a 2028 presidential run by Kennedy would be a threat to MAGA as he is a former Democrat whose previous environmental advocacy work doesn’t align with Trumpism.

Laura Loomer arrives at Philadelphia International Airport on The Trump Organization’s Boeing 757 ahead of The ABC News Presidential Debate on September 10, 2024, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Julia Beverly/Getty Images)

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Key Facts

Loomer is targeting Kennedy and several of his top staffers, including deputy chief of staff and senior counselor Stefanie Spear, President Donald Trump’s surgeon general nominee Casey Means and top FDA vaccine regulator Vinay Prasad, accusing them of disloyalty to Trump, she told Politico Playbook this week.

Loomer previously accused Kennedy of being “a very problematic person” who is “running a shadow presidential campaign” from within the Trump administration, she told The New York Times in July.

Last month, Loomer also advocated for Prasad’s ouster by leading a series of attacks against him, including highlighting his previous support for Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential bid, and a video in which Prasad appeared to joke about using a voodoo doll against Trump to “curse” him over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Other conservative voices, as well as pharmaceutical manufacturer Sarepta Therapeutics, also joined Loomer in pushing for Prasad to be fired after the FDA briefly paused shipments of the Duchenne muscular dystrophy drug because of safety concerns.

Prasad resigned under pressure last month, but was reinstated this week after Kennedy and FDA Commissioner Marty Makary lobbied Trump to reverse the firing, according to Politico.

Loomer in May also highlighted Spear’s work as a founder of the environmental news site EcoWatch and noted it wrote about the potentially negative environmental impacts of Trump’s border wall in the Arizona San Rafael Valley.

Crucial Quote

“In the coming weeks, I will be ramping up my exposes of officials within HHS and FDA so the American people can see more of the pay for play rot themselves and how rabid Trump haters continue to be hired in the Trump administration,” Loomer tweeted in response to Prasad’s rehiring.

Contra

“Secretary Kennedy and the entire HHS team are doing a terrific job as they deliver on President Trump’s mandate to Make America Healthy Again,” an unnamed White House official told Playbook in response to Loomer’s attacks. “Scores of prominent restaurant chains and food brands dropping artificial ingredients from our food supply and historic reforms at the FDA to fast track lifesaving drugs and treatments prove that the entire HHS team is delivering for the American people.”

Tangent

Trump’s base has publicly feuded over several issues in recent months, including over Israel’s war in Gaza, with a coalition of younger MAGA members breaking with the traditionally pro-Israel stance of the Republican Party to suggest Israel has gone too far in its attacks in Gaza, amid a humanitarian crisis there. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., Steve Bannon, former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., and Tucker Carlson have also criticized Israel’s conduct in Gaza. Loomer, who is Jewish, has attacked Greene for decrying what Greene described as “genocide” in Gaza, accusing Greene in a tweet earlier this month of “going on an anti-pro Israel crusade.”

Key Background

Loomer, a known conspiracy theorist and self-described Islamophobe, has become a close confidant of Trump and has sought to influence his personnel decisions, telling Politico she fields tips from those in MAGA world about which staffers might be disloyal to Trump. Others who have been targeted by Loomer, including National Security Administration lawyer April Doss and former West Point Social Sciences Department Chair Jen Easterly, have also been removed from their roles. Kennedy—a former environmental lawyer and prominent voice in the anti-vaccine movement—grew close to Trump after he dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed him. A scion of the Democratic Party’s most famous family, Kennedy initially ran against Biden in the Democratic primary, then announced his run as an independent in October 2023, before dropping out to endorse Trump the following year, calling the Democratic Party “the party of war, censorship, corruption, big pharma, big tech, big money.” At the time, however, Kennedy said “there are still many issues and approaches” on which he and Trump “continue to have differences.”