Calley Means, who recently served as a senior adviser to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., claimed Monday that former White House chief of staff Susie Wiles could “inflict physical harm” on him. Means made the allegation after accusing Wiles of weakening President Trump’s Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA, agenda.
Means resigned from his position last month and has since alleged that Wiles and lobbying firm Ballard Partners helped derail several MAHA priorities. Among his claims, he accused them of supporting an executive order that designated glyphosate-based herbicides—products Means believes could be linked to cancer—as essential to national security.
“People who know Susie well have warned me that she has the capacity to inflict physical harm,” Means wrote on X.
In another post, Means called Wiles “ruthless.”
“Anyone who went around her, she sought to destroy,” he alleged.
Wiles, who was replaced last week by Trump aide Stephen Miller, was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year. She is 69.
Means did not explain what he believed Wiles might do or what led him to suggest she was capable of causing him physical harm.
During an interview with podcaster Joe Rogan, Means also accused Wiles of fostering what he described as a “demonic” culture within the White House. He alleged that she blocked an inquiry into sugar consumption among children because she needed “money from the sugar people to win the midterms.”
“Calley Means’ accusations are outrageous, defamatory, and provably false,” a spokesperson for Wiles told Axios. “Susie has dedicated her career to fighting for President Trump and the American people, and will not allow these lies to go unanswered.”
Means further said he had received “unhinged threats” from former White House official James Blair. He has accused Blair of opposing MAHA efforts to prohibit fruit-flavored vapes and of arguing that vaping policy was “a core midterm issue” for Republicans.
“[Y]ou can’t find a single candidate I have ever told to talk about vape policy, because the idea I argued for it as a core midterm issue is a complete and total lie,” Blair replied on X.
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Brian Ballard, the founder of Ballard Partners, also denied that his firm lobbied the White House regarding fruit-flavored vapes or glyphosate.
“I do not ordinarily respond to commentary about our firm. I am making an exception today because Calley Means has made specific claims about Ballard Partners that are false, and the record should be corrected,” Ballard said in a statement.
“On flavored vapes: No one at Ballard Partners advocated to Susie Wiles or anyone on the White House staff for the authorization of fruit-flavored vapes,” he said. “Our work with White House staff on this issue has been against illegal, unregulated vapes from China, some of which have been found laced with fentanyl, that are reaching American communities and American children.”
“On glyphosate: No one at Ballard Partners lobbied or communicated with Susie Wiles or anyone in the West Wing, including her Deputy Chiefs of Staff, regarding the Administration’s executive order on glyphosate,” Ballard added.
Ballard said his firm’s “interactions with Susie Wiles as Chief of Staff have been limited and have been the exception, not the rule.”
Wiles previously worked for Ballard Partners.
The firm also shared an interview Means gave on a Ballard Partners podcast in May, several months after Trump signed the glyphosate executive order.
Robert Malone, a former member of Kennedy’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccine advisory panel, pointed to what he called a “rather significant omission” in Means’ criticism: Kennedy’s daughter-in-law, Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, works as a lobbyist for Ballard Partners.
“Yes, the SAME Ballard Partners that Means criticizes for its political influence,” Malone wrote on X. “The same firm where Susie Wiles previously worked.”
“Means wants Americans to scrutinize the family connections of powerful government officials. Fair enough,” Malone continued. “But why does that scrutiny apparently stop at Kennedy’s own family?”