SCOOP: Makary's job in jeopardy as WH considers FDA shakeup
The FDA chief has ruffled feathers internally over a slew of issues.
CHOPPING BLOCK PART IV? — FDA Commissioner MARTY MAKARY is expected to get the ax in the coming weeks, according to two well-placed individuals familiar with the matter — the latest sign that Trump’s pre-midterm, house-cleaning isn’t over.
Nothing is certain, these people said. And the president could always change his mind. But my sources expressed confidence that Makary was serving on borrowed time, given all the enemies he’s made in the administration, feathers he’s ruffled within Trump’s coalition, and — especially — for upsetting the president personally.
Just yesterday, the Wall Street Journal had a pretty darn illuminating piece about tensions between Makary and the West Wing: The upshot is that the president suspected that his FDA chief was slow-walking approvals of flavored vapes and nicotine products and actually scolded him for it over the weekend.
Makary apparently got the memo, if a bit late. On Tuesday, the FDA chief gave the green light to a slate of those flavors — even as Makary’s own office argued in February that the agency was still trying to determine whether the products were safe, particularly given longstanding concerns about appealing to kids.
BUT IT MAY BE TOO LITTLE TOO LATE. Makary has made enemies across the administration for his management style — and especially for giving the impression that he’s putting his own agenda ahead of the president’s, I’m told by three well-placed officials.
“He’s trying hard to right the ship — to repair the damage he’s done to internal relationships over the past 15 months,” a senior admin official told me last night. “Whether it’s enough or not is yet to be seen.”
The White House, for its part, defended Makary. WH spokesman KUSH DESAI pushed back when asked about Makary being on the outs.
“Commissioner Marty Makary continues to be an invaluable asset for the Trump administration because he continues to deliver on President Trump’s agenda of modernizing the FDA’s drug approval process, restoring Gold Standard Science in agency decision-making, and implementing the President’s MAHA agenda,” Desai said in a statement.
But keep in mind that even DHS chief KRISTI NOEM got a vote of confidence from the WH — until she didn’t. So who knows what the next few weeks will bring, particularly given that the president is in the mood to shake things up, as Noem, PAM BONDI and LORI CHAVEZ DeREMER can tell you.
A FEW NUGGETS FROM THE WSJ’s reporting that are worth flagging:
Trump has been working the phones, calling allies to ask what they think of Makary and worrying about repelling MAGA supporters who back those vape/nicotine products. We’ll note that vaping was a central part of Trump’s 2024 pitch. As the WSJ notes, he leaned into the industry on the campaign trail, even though he’d cracked down on it during his first term. Now he wants results.
Makary has also made some personnel choices that have left him in bad standing with Trump’s inner circle. The WSJ reports that the WH rejected his pick for chief vaccine regulator, and that they “thwarted” his attempt to push out agency senior staffers he’d clashed with, but that the WH supported.
He’s also angered both the MAHA movement and the Pro-Lifers alike: Followers in the former have steamed over Makary’s apparent skepticism of new drugs aimed at combating certain rare diseases. In that vein, the former Johns Hopkins surgeon and academic — in a movement increasingly skeptical of the medical establishment — sometimes seemed like an unorthodox choice.
And on the latter, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America president MARJORIE DANNENFELSER publicly called for Makary to be fired this week, accusing him of dragging his feet on banning mail-in abortion pills.
THESE ARE TWO CORE CONSTITUENCIES of Trump’s 2024 coalition — people the White House probably doesn’t relish picking fights with heading into the midterms. An easy way to appease both groups? Say bye-bye to Makary.
Bottom line: While people close to Trump say the president is quick to forgive one or even two trespasses by Cabinet officials who land wins for him, an internal rot sets in when a person’s reputation is that of pushing his own agenda, not the boss’s. Makary has his work cut out for him if he wishes to purge that reputation… before that reputation purges him.
Makary can’t unilaterally revise the regs for mifepristone. Why not mention that?