Mike Pence is once again parting ways with President Donald Trump. The former vice president expressed growing frustration with anti-abortion advocates over the inaction of the current White House, calling on his former boss to fire Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Pence claimed that when the FDA failed to conduct a safety review of the abortion drug mifepristone, Kennedy broke his promise to lawmakers and social conservatives who make up a large part of MAGA’s base.
“It’s time to kick this progressive wolf in anti-abortion sheep’s clothing to the curb,” reads a memo from the Pence Group, Advancing American Freedom Foundation, which was first reported by RealClearPolitics. “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has to go.”
The dissent suggests the Trump coalition may be fraying. Evangelical voters helped him win the presidency twice. The Make America Healthy Again contingent includes a large number of disaffected Democrats who followed Kennedy into Trump’s camp last year, widening his margin of victory. Back in the White House, Trump focused more on the alleged dangers of food dye, Tylenol and vaccines than on restricting abortion.
In a statement to RCP, Pence noted the “critical role” anti-abortion voters played in Trump’s return to the Oval Office, before slamming Kennedy for his “inability or unwillingness to deliver on his many promises to the anti-abortion movement.” He added that the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services has not met even the minimum standards, noting that “reviews of dangerous chemical abortion pills that millions of pro-lifers believe are the minimum requirements for an anti-abortion government remain incomplete.”
“Kennedy should step down to give President Trump the opportunity to choose a new Secretary of Health and Human Services who will deliver pro-life gains for the American people,” Pence said.
Frustration with an administration led by the self-proclaimed “most anti-abortion president” in U.S. history is already boiling beneath the surface. Although the number of abortions has increased each year since the Supreme Court overturned the ruling, the issue has disappeared from the White House policy mix. Roe v. Wade. Last week, Bloomberg News reported that the Trump administration had delayed a long-promised review of mifepristone until after the midterm elections, sparking outrage.
A senior White House official denied the allegation, telling RCP, “This study is not moving slowly. A comprehensive, exhaustive review will take time.”
Frustration initially focused on FDA Commissioner Marty Makary. Susan B. Anthony American anti-abortion groups were the first to call for Macari’s firing. Reality TV president Lila Rose followed suit. “This is politics against women,” complained Brad Kyle, director of government affairs at Americans United for Life. “Voting over safety.” Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., wrote on social media. “The FDA lied to me and other members of Congress.”
In response, the White House shrugged.
“FDA Commissioner Marty Makary is working hard to ensure Americans have the best possible gold-standard scientific research on mifepristone,” Trump spokesman Kush Desai told RCP. “The White House maintains the utmost confidence in Commissioner Makary.” He noted that “the American people have achieved milestone victory after milestone victory,” from his crackdown on artificial food ingredients to the first safety review of infant formula in decades.
Pence last week joined conservatives calling for the FDA chief to be fired. Now he’s escalating the debate by going after Macari’s boss, the secretary of Health and Human Services. Kennedy. A source familiar with the strategy told RCP the goal is to “set the stage” for Republican lawmakers and “give them more room to run to do what they need to do: tell Trump that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. needs to step down.”
“It’s critical that he takes this seriously if he wants to keep the coalition together,” the source said of the president. “No one in his cabinet seems to be telling him that.”
Kennedy, a pro-life Democrat, had to overcome lingering Republican skepticism during his confirmation hearings before joining the Republican Party. He promised, among other things, to direct the FDA to conduct a safety review of mifepristone. He said that work was underway when he testified later in September, telling lawmakers that the Biden administration “actually distorted the data to cover up one of the safety signals.” The next month, the FDA approved a generic version of the abortion pill, making the drug more accessible and angering social conservatives.
After the Supreme Court overturned the state’s abortion rights in 2022, prescriptions for the drug surged, and the total number of abortions nationwide increased year by year. Nearly two-thirds of abortions are now performed with the drug, which is readily available through the mail after the Biden administration reversed rules that required an in-person doctor’s visit to get a prescription.
In August, 22 Republican attorneys general called on the Trump administration to reinstate mifepristone’s safety profile, saying it “posed serious risks to women,” citing a study from the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center that claimed one in 10 women experienced “serious adverse events,” including bleeding, emergency room visits and ectopic pregnancies.
Republican states argue that state laws are easily circumvented as long as mifepristone remains available by mail. Their concerns fell on deaf ears. Biden-era policies continue under Trump.
Pence said the delayed review of mifepristone, the approval of new generic versions of the abortion pill and the failure to reverse Biden’s prescription policies were blows one, two and three to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The former vice president has accused the Trump administration of obstructing Congress, and in October, the AAF filed a Freedom of Information Act request and later took HHS to court seeking documents related to approval of new generic drugs. Their requests have yet to be answered.
The messy divorce between Pence and Trump is long over. The former vice president fell out of favor after refusing to agree to a plan to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Their differences ended four years later when Pence unsuccessfully challenged Trump for the Republican nomination. Trump later chose J.D. Vance, another staunchly anti-abortion Republican, as vice president.
Pence and Trump do not speak regularly. But Pence calmed the concerns of social conservatives more than a decade ago, when the president was better known as a celebrity real estate mogul who donated to Democrats. During their four-year terms, the pair scored numerous victories for the anti-abortion coalition, including successfully confirming three Supreme Court nominees they later voted to overturn. roe. Pence, a longtime ally of anti-abortion activists, is now relying on that record to argue that the Health and Human Services secretary should be fired.
“Republicans gave JFK Jr. a chance, but he failed. Kennedy Jr. was appointed based on the belief that he would protect vulnerable women and children rather than continue four years of progressive pro-life policies at the Department of Health and Human Services,” the Pence group memo concluded. “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. must go.”
Philip Wegmann is RealClearPolitics’ White House correspondent.