White House seeks to tighten control over HHS priorities with personnel shakeup

(CNN) — The White House is looking to exercise tighter control over key areas of the US Health and Human Services Department, planning a shakeup of top personnel as the administration looks ahead to the midterm elections, an administration official told CNN.

The moves are aimed at restructuring HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s senior-most ranks, installing four new senior counselors who will be charged with more closely managing the department’s daily operations and communications across the federal government.

Chris Klomp, the administration’s current Medicare head and senior adviser at HHS, will become chief counselor and the department’s de facto chief of staff, the administration official said.

John Brooks, the deputy administrator at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, will be a senior counselor in charge of CMS-related issues. Two senior US Food and Drug Administration officials, Grace Graham and Kyle Diamantas, will take on senior counselor roles at HHS managing FDA-related issues.

Matt Buckham, the current HHS chief of staff, will move to a senior counselor role, the administration official said, adding that the changes came out of conversations between White House officials and Kennedy.

HHS confirmed the changes later Thursday, saying the hires would help accelerate the department’s agenda in their new roles, while still retaining their previous positions.

“I am proud to elevate battle-tested, principled leaders onto my immediate team — individuals with the courage and experience to help us move faster and further as we work to Make America Health Again,” Kennedy said in a statement.

The White House is preparing a midterm push that will rely heavily on promoting key health policies President Donald Trump has increasingly touted as central to his domestic agenda. That includes the “most favored nation” drug pricing deals that Klomp took a lead role in negotiating and recent efforts to spotlight healthier eating that Trump aides view as appealing to a broad spectrum of voters.

Trump officials are also planning to step up their case for broader health care legislation aimed at codifying the administration’s most favored nation deals and advancing a slate of other policies aimed at lowering health care costs, the administration official said. That effort would require more muscle in HHS’ senior ranks, they added.

Klomp, who has played a central role in negotiating and promoting the drug price deals that Trump has touted as a top accomplishment, has drawn praise at HHS and among top Trump aides for his management expertise and public messaging skills.

The moves also represent an effort to keep closer tabs on Kennedy and an HHS leadership that has struggled at times to coordinate with its own agencies and the White House, frustrating senior Trump officials and generating dayslong controversies.

Kennedy last year ousted his first chief of staff, Heather Flick Melanson, and a top deputy, Hannah Anderson, after just months on the job following a series of internal clashes. The department was also roiled last year by the abrupt firing — and then rehiring — of top FDA official Dr. Vinay Prasad, who has since made a series of controversial drug approval decisions that have overruled career staff and angered the drug industry.

In the meantime, Kennedy has also pressed ahead on a major overhaul of the nation’s vaccine system — a top priority for the longtime vaccine skeptic that has raised concerns among Republicans that it could damage the party politically ahead of the midterms.

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

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