RFK Jr. blindsided by Trump with 'priority' flip-flop demand: report

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was caught by surprise by a demand from President Donald Trump in May to lead his department in making a massive sea change in policy.

According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, the Health and Human Services secretary was "taken aback" when the president proposed that he ramp up efforts to link autism to childhood vaccinations.

Kennedy had previously been explicitly told to "tone down his anti-vaccine crusade" ahead of the midterms. White House political advisers worried his controversial positions would alienate voters. So Kennedy complied, muzzling himself in service of the midterm strategy.

Then Trump blindsided him.

At a May lunch at the presidential golf course in northern Virginia, Trump personally demanded Kennedy make vaccine-autism link research a "priority" — directly contradicting the guidance Kennedy had received just weeks earlier.

According to the Journal, "The issue has been an ongoing point of tension between the two men. In a mid-June meeting in the Oval Office, the president vented to Kennedy that he wasn’t doing enough, people familiar with the matter said."

The message was unmistakable: Kennedy's tenure at HHS hinges on making progress on vaccine-autism research — a discredited theory with no scientific basis.

"The president has made clear he thinks he has given Kennedy enough time and is disappointed the health secretary hasn’t accomplished more in the past year and a half," people familiar with the president's thinking told the Journal.