Sen. Ron Johnson, one of President Donald Trump’s most steadfast Republican allies, accused the Trump administration of corruption over the weekend, citing explosive allegations from a former top White House health adviser. The Wisconsin senator’s remarks, made in an interview with Fox News on Saturday, came just days after Calley Means, a senior adviser to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., leveled similar claims on a widely circulated podcast, The Washington Post reported.
Whistleblower’s ‘Gory’ Detail Fuels Bipartisan Firestorm
Means, who resigned last month from his post at the Department of Health and Human Services, detailed his allegations in a two-hour episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience” released Friday. He claimed that a “concentrated group of people” in the Trump administration, including outgoing White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, were “antagonistic to what people voted for” and were, in his view, “doing things for other reasons.”
“Particularly in many cases to enrich their families,” Means told Rogan, Axios reported. Among his most explosive claims was that companies who hired Wiles’ daughter as a lobbyist received higher priority for funding from the administration. He also alleged that Wiles, in particular, was laser-focused on securing corporate donations for the midterms.
“Susie said to me many times, ‘We need money for the midterms, Calley. We need money for the midterms,’” Means recounted, adding that she once told him directly, “I need the money from the sugar people to win the midterms,” according to The Hill.
Means contended that Wiles and her allies, both inside and outside the White House, consistently undermined politically popular health initiatives championed by the administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement. He pointed to specific examples, including the administration’s support for Bayer, the maker of the weedkiller Roundup, and its handling of issues like regulating ultra-processed foods and flavored e-cigarettes.
Allegations of Policy Sabotage and Corporate Favoritism
Means alleged that a Justice Department lawyer, who previously worked for a firm that represents Bayer, drafted a legal opinion urging the Supreme Court to take up a case that would limit Bayer’s liability from lawsuits over its weedkiller, The Hill reported. He also claimed that an FDA commissioner nominee worked with the DOJ on this effort. The Supreme Court ultimately ruled that federal law does not require cancer warning labels beyond Environmental Protection Agency mandates.
“The amount of vitriol and lobbying on this issue, just having a simple definition out, because the food companies don’t want people to know the truth,” Means said of the delays in defining “ultra-processed food,” a key MAHA priority, Axios reported.
Means suggested that Wiles essentially ran the White House, saying she had a “stranglehold on any policy decision.” He named several top advisers, including deputy chief of staff Richard Walters and assistant to the president for policy Walker Barrett, as key figures who killed the MAHA movement’s momentum, according to Means.
“These people just, and I don’t mean this like in a really dismissive way, these aren’t the best and brightest, these staffers. They have tremendous power, though,” Means told Rogan. “But they’re just like D.C., you know, they play the game, and yeah, it’s crazy.”
He also claimed that Wiles and her staff refused to even discuss executive orders on health policy, telling him, “We’re not discussing this.”
White House Pushes Back, Promises to Keep Fighting
White House spokeswoman Allison Schuster told Axios that the administration “has already secured extensive victories” for the MAHA agenda, “including overhauling the dietary guidelines for Americans, axing artificial ingredients in our food supply, and investing in regenerative farming.”
“President Trump and Secretary Kennedy continue to work around the clock to deliver more wins for the American people,” Schuster said. The Department of Health and Human Services referred Axios’ request to a post from Kennedy on X, which stated that he and Trump “intend to keep fighting until the American people—not corporate influence—drive our health policies.”
The senator told Fox News that Means had described the problem “in gory detail,” including corruption “within the Trump administration.”
“This is how government operates on a bipartisan basis,” Johnson continued, arguing that the rot stretches across “government agency after government agency, captured by the very…corporations that are regulated by government.”
Johnson also weighed in on the Republican party’s performance in the midterm elections, lamenting that GOP voters “were expecting us to drain the swamp, but it seems like the swamp won.”
A Political Earthquake in Washington
The allegations have created a political earthquake in Washington, coming as Trump announced that Stephen Miller is replacing Wiles as his chief of staff.
As the dust settles, the White House has not yet responded to The Washington Post’s request for comment on Johnson’s specific accusations.
One thing is clear: the “gory details” provided by Calley Means have opened a new front in the ongoing battle over the soul of the Trump administration.
