Blair weighs a lawsuit as Means alleges corporate influence over health policy
James Blair, President Trump’s former deputy chief of staff and Susie Wiles’s former deputy, sent Calley Means, a former top health adviser, a warning by text ahead of what became a public social-media feud that weekend. “If you are gonna try to knife me, I’m happy to return the favor,” Blair wrote in the message reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Blair later said he was reviewing his options on whether to sue Means and denied the corruption allegations as scurrilous, false and defamatory.
Means was a top ally to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and, until recently, worked on health policy in the White House. The previous week, he taped an interview with influential podcaster Joe Rogan in which he accused Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff until Friday, and other aides, including Blair, of siding with industry and stymying the administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda. The feud between Means and Wiles’s allies reverberated online and in television interviews through the weekend.
Means said Wiles set White House priorities based on what would encourage corporate donors to give to Republicans’ midterm election efforts rather than policies that would promote healthy eating. He told The Wall Street Journal that the conversation happened in early June and concerned a letter Kennedy wanted to send about ultraprocessed food. Kennedy wanted to respond positively to a petition from former Food and Drug Administration commissioner David Kessler, who had asked the agency to declare certain refined carbohydrates unsafe.
Means said he recalled Wiles telling him, “I need the money from the sugar people to win the midterms” and “Calley, we can’t do this. I need sugar money.”
Wiles did not respond to requests for comment. She told CBS News, which aired an interview with Means on Sunday, that Trump had done more for the MAHA movement than any other president. A White House official said Wiles had been an essential leader in MAHA.
Means told Rogan that Blair was among the aides who advocated boosting sales of fruit-flavored vapes. Means later called online for Wiles and “other relevant parties” to preserve their records, including those regarding Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio, Wiles’s former lobbying firm Ballard Partners and Bayer on the pesticide glyphosate. In a lengthy post online, Ballard Partners said Means’s allegations about the firm were false and its interactions with Wiles were “limited.” Bayer declined to comment, and Fabrizio did not immediately respond.
Blair rejected Means’s account. “The implication of corruption towards me and all the others referenced by Calley is scurrilous, false, and defamatory,” he told The Wall Street Journal. “He’s just a failed political operative and wedding dress salesman.”
In another message reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, Blair wrote: “You just dragged me in a very public forum with scurrilous half baked accusations and you know what you were doing.” Means replied: “If I said something factually inaccurate about you, please let me know.” In a further text, Blair wrote: “I’m not sure if you’ve been through a defamation lawsuit, but I have. And I know how it works well” and “You have actual malice and I can prove harm.” He again said he was reviewing his options on whether to sue Means.
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, in a Fox News interview, urged Americans to listen to Rogan’s podcast and hear what he called “the corruption that Calley Means lays out in gory detail in government, I’m sad to say within the Trump administration.” California Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia, who is expected to become the next chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said he expected to investigate the allegations Means laid out that White House aides favored corporate interests over Americans’ health.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the fallout from Means’s Rogan interview could imperil one of Trump’s health nominees. In a CBS News interview aired Sunday, Means doubled down on his criticism of Trump’s nominee to lead the Food and Drug Administration, saying Heidi Overton did not have the character or integrity to lead the FDA and had driven the White House’s relaxed stance on fruit-flavored vapes.
Overton’s nomination is pending before the Senate health committee and likely needs support from Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who lost her election last week amid widespread voter dissatisfaction with Trump and has said she is worried about fruit-flavored vapes. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Overton, but a spokesman for Overton told Face the Nation that “two former FDA commissioners think otherwise” about her qualifications for the FDA job.
On Friday, Trump announced that he planned to replace Wiles with Stephen Miller, his longtime immigration adviser, as his new chief of staff.
The midterm results also prompted other Trump allies to assign blame. Some White House officials and Republicans privately blamed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who advocated for the war in Iran; Trump and Vice President JD Vance publicly acknowledged that the war contributed to the midterm losses. Trump defended Hegseth, and The Wall Street Journal said Miller was seen as aligned with the defense secretary.
The Wall Street Journal reported that some of the post-election dispute centered on allegations that Trump allies profited from connections to the Trump administration. The same account said voters ranked corruption among the top issues heading into the election.