President Donald Trump is reportedly growing frustrated with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on a key issue, and that suggests his time in the administration is running short.
The Wall Street Journal reported the president is running out of patience with Kennedy's probe into the supposed link between vaccines and autism, and MS NOW's Hayes Brown argued that may be putting the notorious vaccine skeptic on thin ice.
"It’s a surprising accusation, given the centrality of vaccine skepticism to Kennedy’s political brand and the Make America Healthy Again movement he is spearheading," Brown wrote. "It also cuts against the advice that the White House itself reportedly delivered earlier this year, to have HHS downplay the focus on vaccines ahead of the midterm elections."
The Journal reported that Trump wants Kennedy to push federal guidelines toward fewer recommended childhood vaccinations, hoping this could eventually lower autism rates. Tensions reportedly boiled over in a mid-June Oval Office meeting, where Trump told Kennedy directly that he wasn't doing enough, and that he's grown disappointed after giving him more than a year and a half to deliver results.
"Despite the clear scientific consensus, the HHS department under Kennedy has already launched several new studies on vaccine safety and attempted to recommend a reduction in the number of immunization shots that children receive," Brown wrote. "But that isn’t enough for Trump, who has shown that he doesn’t care about backing his own wild claims with solid proof."
The column emphasizes that no credible scientific link between vaccines and autism exists, reminding readers that the original 1998 study behind the claim was retracted in 2010 after its author was discredited, and no subsequent research has replicated its findings.
"Working for the federal government now requires a willingness to share in the president’s delusions," Brown wrote. "But providing evidence sufficient to convince people outside of the MAGA cult of personality, including federal judges and grand juries, has hampered efforts to deal out the vengeance that Trump has demanded."
Brown compared Kennedy's predicament to FBI Director Kash Patel's struggles delivering on years of promised revelations about Jeffrey Epstein's death — claims that similarly evaporated once officials were in position to act on them, causing political damage to the administration. Trump has shown a similar pattern with unsubstantiated claims about the 2020 election.
"There are plenty of people in the world who are willing to say obviously untrue things in public for attention, money or both, but in private acknowledge the limits of their claims," Brown wrote. "But when Trump has decided something is true, there’s little that can shake his conviction.
