Vice President JD Vance commended Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.‘s agency for its commitment to the Make America Healthy Again agenda, calling it a “critical part” of the Trump administration’s success in Washington.
Vance joined Kennedy at the “Make America Healthy Again” Summit on Wednesday, praising Kennedy’s HHS for being “willing to ask questions that people in government haven’t been asking in a long time.”
“If you think about how unhealthy the American population has gotten over the past 20 or 30 years, you’re not going to fix that problem unless you have people at the table who are asking different questions than the ones that were asked 20 years ago,” Vance said.
The vice president leaned into this contrarian point throughout the interview, telling Kennedy, “There is no way that this country is going to advance unless we’re comfortable with people who are willing to challenge orthodoxy.”
He praised the MAHA movement for “asking the right questions” about food and prescription drugs, saying those questions have affected how he thinks about his own nutrition and the medicine his children take.
“What are we putting into our bodies? Where was it sourced from? If we’re eating animal-based protein, is it coming from a place where the animals are treated the right way? If we’re putting medications into our body, are we actually confident that they’re doing the thing that they’re supposed to do, that they’re safe and effective?” Vance said.
Vance’s comments come after some conservative voices have been holding Republicans’ feet to the fire to ensure their commitment to the MAHA agenda.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who has recently sparred with members of her own party, including President Donald Trump, listed “MAHA” as one of three groups she believes “Republicans have disenfranchised” following the Democratic wins on Election Day in early November.
“You can’t meme and throw red meat rants and interviews and get your way out of this. These people are serious and only support action, they are done with words. And I completely agree with them,” Greene wrote on X.
Conservative activist Laura Loomer has also flexed her influence within the MAHA movement, criticizing several HHS officials for not being aligned enough with the MAHA agenda. The former director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research at the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Vinay Prasad, resigned after Loomer criticized him as “left-wing,” though he was reinstated several weeks later. She also criticized Kennedy and his top advisers in an interview with Politico in August.
Vance praised Kennedy and the MAHA movement during Wednesday’s panel, telling the secretary that it is “a movement that you put together and it’s been a critical part of our success in Washington.”
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Vance also discussed MAHA’s attitude toward medication, telling Kennedy he is now more cautious about taking ibuprofen.
“I think that’s another MAHA style attitude. It’s not anti-medication; it’s anti-useless medication. We should only be taking stuff, we should only be giving our kids stuff if it’s actually necessary, safe, and effective. And I think that’s an attitude that’s really beneficial to the entire country,” Vance said.
