WASHINGTON — Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign to swiftly bar the use of food stamps to buy soda is fueling tensions between his team and the Agriculture Department, according to four people inside and outside government familiar with the dynamics.
The Health and Human Services secretary wants the Trump administration to approve state petitions banning soda from the program for the first time. But he doesn’t control the massive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which is managed by the USDA.
Aides to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins agree with Kennedy that federal aid should not be supporting a product they blame for driving obesity and other chronic diseases, according to the people, who were granted anonymity to describe the private deliberations. But they have questioned the feasibility of Kennedy’s rapid approach and bristled at his encroachment into their territory.
The behind-the-scenes friction represents an early flashpoint in the delicate partnership between Kennedy and Rollins aimed at fulfilling the Trump administration’s vows to improve Americans’ health through its “Make America Healthy Again” agenda.
“Rollins and Kennedy, they’ve both talked about this issue,” said one of the people, a USDA staffer. “However, [HHS] is flying solo. It just doesn’t help to find a joint pathway forward.”
Kennedy aides in recent weeks have privately encouraged governors and state lawmakers to submit requests for permission to limit soda purchases in the program that feeds 42 million Americans, despite the USDA’s lingering concerns, two of the people said.
Health officials also pushed to use an event with Kennedy and West Virginia Republican Gov. Patrick Morrisey on Friday as an opportunity to tout the state’s plan to restrict food stamps. Rollins was not expected to attend, though the situation remains fluid.
The two Cabinet secretaries have sought to present a united front, frequently appearing together in public and embracing key priorities of the MAHA movement — including support for overhauling SNAP to crack down on soda and other junk food.
“The top item that food stamps support through taxpayer dollars: Sugary drinks, to a group of children that come from a lower socioeconomic ladder that are in many ways from very impoverished families,” Rollins said during a private White House meeting with MAHA influencers that she and Kennedy attended earlier this month, according to an excerpt of her remarks obtained by POLITICO. “And yet, that’s the number one thing our food stamp program is buying.”
No prior administration has ever approved a ban on specific foods from SNAP, largely due to the cost and difficulty of enforcing those exclusions as well as the lack of evidence that the approach would yield significant long-term health benefits.
Within Kennedy’s orbit, though, some allies are growing impatient, privately questioning whether some USDA officials are trying to undermine the policy initiative altogether.
“It’s notable,” said one of the people familiar with the dynamics. “They’re trying to win an inside game.”
Spokespeople for both HHS and USDA denied that there is any friction between the secretaries, saying the two “are in lockstep to make America healthy again.”
“Where improvements can be made to encourage healthier decisions and healthier outcomes, the Department stands ready to support those improvements,” Audra Weeks, a USDA spokesperson, said in a statement. “This notion that USDA is obstructing is nothing more than inside-the-beltway nonsense.”
Kennedy and his advisers have eyed USDA warily since Trump picked Rollins to lead it, overriding their push for candidates more aligned with the MAHA movement.
A longtime Trump ally who ran the Domestic Policy Council during his first term, Rollins sparked even more unease within Kennedy’s camp after appointing the former head of a seed oil trade group as her chief of staff, two of the people familiar said. Kennedy has long cast seed oils as a major driver of chronic disease, at one point alleging that Americans were being “unknowingly poisoned” by the oils often found in fast food and other products.
Rollins and Kennedy have nevertheless carved out a working relationship, even as their departments have struggled at times to stay aligned. In early March, USDA canceled programs designed to help schools and food banks buy food from local farms — a move that two of the people said at the time puzzled Kennedy aides who saw them as beneficial in promoting healthier eating.
Kennedy also recently proposed combating bird flu by allowing the disease to simply “run through” poultry farms, theorizing that it would help identify which birds are immune. While Rollins at first floated the approach only in limited circumstances, on Wednesday she appeared to embrace the strategy, although she hasn’t dropped USDA’s plans to enhance biosecurity and explore the development of potential vaccines.
Aides and allies largely dismissed those incidents as growing pains in coordinating the activities of two sprawling departments. But overhauling SNAP is seen as a critical priority for both Rollins and Kennedy, who have publicly expressed support for banning soda and other junk food from the program.
Kennedy has since argued that the fastest way to reshape SNAP is to grant state-submitted waivers allowing them to exclude specific items from eligibility.
“We shouldn’t be subsidizing them,” Kennedy said of soda purchases during a Fox News interview earlier this month, pointing to the impact on low-income Americans. “They’re the ones with the worst chronic disease burden, and we are literally poisoning those neighborhoods.”
Lawmakers in red states have already proposed legislation directing governors to seek federal waivers restricting soda or certain junk food from SNAP. Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders vowed in December to pursue a waiver. And Democratic Govs. Gavin Newsom of California and Jared Polis of Colorado have indicated that they might also be open to similar restrictions — a sign that the approach could win some bipartisan support.
Health officials had sought to further promote the idea at the Friday event with West Virginia’s governor, two of the people familiar with the matter said. Morrisey was tentatively slated to announce his plan to submit a waiver.
But the specifics remain in flux amid USDA’s concerns over how best to implement shared MAHA goals, noting the technical complications of any waivers.
The process has frustrated some on Kennedy’s team. And though they have yet to directly blame Rollins, they have privately suggested that her staff is slow-walking the effort — and potentially giving major beverage and food companies an opening to water down any impact on their products.
The American Beverage Association has lobbied hard against efforts to exclude soda from SNAP eligibility, saying in a statement this week that they “won’t make anyone healthier or save taxpayer dollars.”
But USDA officials and others working on the issue contend that the main challenge in altering the program is straightforward: It’s just complicated to work out the specifics.
The government requires that waivers meet specific standards, including presenting a viable plan for tracking the success of any changes and time-limit requirements. States can also run into challenges determining which products fall into a banned category.
“There are very real feasibility concerns about these types of proposals and how a state would actually implement a project like this,” said Katie Bergh, a senior policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “This is something that in reality tends to be much more complicated than it seems at first blush.”
There’s no precedent for such bans, despite past attempts by states to impose them. The Obama administration blocked a high-profile bid by then-New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2011 to ban soda from SNAP over logistical concerns and questions about whether it would successfully reduce obesity.
During Trump’s first term as president, his administration in 2018 rejected an effort by Maine’s Republican governor to block candy and sugar-sweetened beverages from SNAP. USDA officials at the time cited research suggesting that the ban would make administering the food stamp program more expensive for the government and retailers.
Congressional efforts to ban items from SNAP have also failed in the face of opposition from grocery store representatives and lawmakers who warn it could create new barriers, restrict choice or further stigmatize people who rely on the assistance.
Rollins is “out there calling herself a MAHA mom and talking about this stuff from an RFK-aligned perspective,” a food industry lobbyist granted anonymity to speak candidly said, noting that granting a waiver is more complicated than HHS understands. “It’s likely the team at USDA is working through a number of things, not just from a policy perspective but a legal perspective.”
By ADAM CANCRYN and MARCIA BROWN/Politico
Grace Yarrow contributed to this report.
