Trump pulls nomination of Casey Means for surgeon general
April 30 (UPI) — President Donald Trump on Thursday pulled the nomination of Casey Means for surgeon general and replaced her with Dr. Nicole Saphier.
Means, a medical doctor, is a Make America Healthy Again activist who doesn’t have an active medical license.
Saphier is a working radiologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York and a former Fox News contributor.
Trump announced the appointment on Truth Social.
“Nicole is a STAR physician who has spent her career guiding women facing breast cancer through their diagnosis and treatment while tirelessly advocating to increase early cancer detection and prevention, while at the same time working with men and women on all other forms of cancer diagnoses and treatments. She is also an INCREDIBLE COMMUNICATOR, who makes complicated health issues more easily understood by all Americans. Dr. Nicole Saphier will do great things for our Country, and help, ‘MAKE AMERICA HEALTHY AGAIN,'” the president posted.
Means’ nomination had stalled in the Senate. In February, she answered senators’ questions about vaccines, psychedelics and abortion pills.
Trump blamed Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., a physician, because he had refused to say if he would support Means.
He said, in a separate post: “Hopefully all of the Great Republican People of Louisiana, which I won, BIG, three times, will be voting Bill Cassidy OUT OF OFFICE in the upcoming Republican Primary!”
In January, Trump endorsed Rep. Julia Letlow, R-La., for the Louisiana Republican primary against Cassidy.
When reporters asked Cassidy about Trump blaming Means’ failed nomination on him, Cassidy said, “I can promise you, there are multiple people on the committee who decided to vote no,” Politico reported.
