‘They want him to go away, but not go away mad’: Trump’s biographer says RFK Jr. is surviving for a reason the White House won’t admit publicly

The White House is in a tough spot when it comes to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. While President Donald Trump has been removing several top officials this spring, including his attorney general, DHS secretary, and labor secretary, he appears unable to do the same with his Health and Human Services secretary. According to biographer Michael Wolff, the administration is effectively stuck with Kennedy.

Wolff recently shared his thoughts on the Inside Trump’s Head podcast, explaining that while there is an effort to push Kennedy out of the spotlight, the administration fears the political fallout. “They are now stuck with RFK Jr. and the anti-vax face,” Wolff told co-host Joanna Coles. The White House sees the Make America Healthy Again movement, known as MAHA, as a key part of Trump’s broader base and wants to avoid a messy exit.

As Wolff put it, “They want him to go away, but not go away mad.” Kennedy, who is 72, has become the public face of a movement that targets everything from food dyes to milk alternatives, while holding a firm anti-vaccine stance. But with the midterms approaching, administration officials are beginning to realize that the general public does not share those views, reports The Daily Beast.

The White House is quietly distancing itself from Kennedy while keeping him in his role

Trump has already made moves that suggest he is stepping back from the anti-vaccine position. In April, he appointed Dr. Erica Schwartz, a Brown University physician who supports vaccines, to lead the CDC. Kennedy revealed that Trump did not even consult him on that decision. Wolff described this pattern as the “gradual defenestration of RFK Jr.” 

This is just one of many instances where Trump’s personal decisions have raised eyebrows among those watching the administration closely. The frustration is not coming from the White House alone. MAHA supporters also feel let down, particularly over the administration’s decision to sign an executive order in February supporting glyphosate-based herbicides, the active ingredient in Bayer’s weedkiller RoundUp. 

MAHA influencer Alex Clark warned that these voters are not loyal to any single party and could stay home during the midterms if they feel ignored. This tension played out during recent Senate hearings, where Kennedy faced tough questions from both the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. 

Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, who is a physician, pressed Kennedy hard on his rhetoric around measles and vaccine safety. “Any time children are dying from vaccine-preventable diseases [or] we have an increased incidence of reports, whatever the disease is, there should be focus,” Cassidy said. “We are a first-world country, and speaking as a physician that knows this can be prevented, it grieves me. It grieves me.”

According to CNN, Kennedy dismissed the scrutiny over measles as political theater. “It’s all partisanship, it’s all tribalism, and it’s not real,” he said during the hearing. Meanwhile, White House officials have reportedly been discouraging Kennedy and his team from speaking publicly about their plans to overhaul vaccine policy. 

Whether the strategy of keeping Kennedy in place while limiting his influence will hold through the midterms is unclear. The administration is walking a thin line between holding on to a controversial figure and appealing to a broader electorate that is growing skeptical of his agenda.In other legal and political battles involving the administration, the Supreme Court recently ruled against Trump, with FedEx and UPS set to refund tariff charges to their customers following the decision.