Trump pulls Means surgeon general pick, taps Fox News radiologist Saphier

Trump withdrew Casey Means’s stalled surgeon general nomination and replaced her with Nicole B. Saphier, a Memorial Sloan Kettering breast radiologist, Fox News contributor, and founder of an herbal supplement company who has publicly questioned vaccines. The pivot follows months of Senate inaction after Means’s February HELP Committee hearing, where Republican members including chair Bill Cassidy raised concerns about her qualifications and vaccine stance.

Means holds a medical degree but dropped out of residency and lacks an active license, meaning she could not practice as the country’s top doctor. At her hearing she dodged direct questions on vaccine recommendations and declined to push back on HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vaccine positions. Outside medicine, she built a wellness brand selling supplements, teas, and diagnostic tests, and co-authored a book containing a chapter titled “Trust Yourself, Not Your Doctor.”

Trump used the withdrawal to attack Cassidy as “disloyal” for blocking Kennedy’s preferred pick, framing the swap as a continuation of the MAHA agenda rather than a retreat from it. Saphier’s nomination keeps the role aligned with vaccine-skeptical, supplement-adjacent figures while swapping in a candidate who actually practices medicine.