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Calley Means Says White House Aide Told RFK Jr. Not to Challenge Glyphosate Order

A government desk where a policy decision was made

Summary

  • Calley Means alleges Kennedy was instructed not to challenge Trump’s glyphosate order.
  • Wiles and a former White House aide worked at firms that now represent Bayer.
  • A cancer judgment upheld on appeal contrasts with a later Supreme Court barrier to warning lawsuits.

Means alleges Kennedy was told not to object

Former health adviser Calley Means says a White House aide told Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. not to challenge President Donald Trump’s glyphosate executive order. His account puts renewed scrutiny on the administration’s protection of herbicide production and its connections to Bayer’s lobbying network.

In his November 6 interview with Joe Rogan, Means identified Walker Barrett as the official who presented the order as a settled national-security decision. Means alleged that Barrett instructed him to notify Kennedy without calling the president, and that Susie Wiles’ office reinforced that discussion was closed. The White House and Wiles’ spokesperson dispute Means’ broader accusations.

Trump’s February 18 order invokes the Defense Production Act to support elemental phosphorus and glyphosate-based herbicide supplies. The administration cites defense manufacturing and agricultural security. Its immunity provision covers compliance with federal orders under the act; the text does not automatically extinguish every pesticide lawsuit.

Wiles and a former personnel aide worked at Bayer’s lobbying firms

Former Trump chief of staff Susie Wiles previously worked at Ballard Partners, which represents Bayer. She subsequently co-chaired Mercury Public Affairs from 2022 until November 2024, according to her financial disclosure and reporting by U.S. Right to Know.

Mercury’s federal registration identifies Bayer U.S. LLC as its client from August 25, 2025. Its disclosed issues include crop-protection tools and agricultural supply chains. That registration came after Wiles left Mercury; it does not establish that she personally represented Bayer.

Former White House personnel aide Trent Morse also worked at both firms: Ballard Partners from 2020 to 2022, followed by Mercury as a senior vice president, U.S. Right to Know reports. These employment ties document overlap between Trump’s personnel network and Bayer’s representatives, but do not establish who shaped the order.

Brian Ballard denies his firm communicated with Wiles or West Wing officials about the glyphosate order.

Cancer verdicts face a separate federal labeling barrier

The cancer litigation concerns Roundup, a herbicide whose active ingredient is glyphosate. In Edwin Hardeman’s case, a jury found Roundup caused his non-Hodgkin lymphoma. In May 2021, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the judgment, including approximately $5.3 million in compensatory damages and $20 million in punitive damages after a trial-court reduction.

The appeals court also upheld admission of expert testimony on both the general cancer link and the cause of Hardeman’s illness. That is a case-specific civil finding, rather than a determination that every exposure causes cancer.

A later ruling changed the legal position on warning claims. On June 25, 2026, the Supreme Court reversed the Missouri appellate judgment in Monsanto v. Durnell, where a jury had awarded a cancer plaintiff more than $1 million.

The justices held that federal pesticide law preempted the state failure-to-warn claim because it would require a cancer label beyond EPA’s requirements. EPA has assessed glyphosate as unlikely to cause cancer. The Supreme Court decision addressed federal labeling law and access to a state-law remedy, rather than independently testing whether Roundup caused Durnell’s illness.

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