Trump Nominates Dr. Casey Means As Surgeon General

Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana singlehandedly administers American medical policy, not President Trump and HHS Secretary Kennedy:

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-says-surgeon-general-nominee-will-continue-fight-maha-health-movement-2026-04-30/

Trump names Nicole Saphier as Surgeon General pick, withdraws Means
By Ahmed Aboulenein - April 30, 2026

Summary

• Withdrawing Means deals a setback to Health Secretary Kennedy
• Trump attacks Cassidy for blocking Means' nomination
• Saphier known for breast cancer advocacy, Fox ​News contributions

WASHINGTON, April 30 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump named radiologist and Fox News contributor Dr. Nicole Saphier as his pick ‌for U.S. Surgeon General on Thursday, his third nominee for the post, after withdrawing the nomination of Casey Means.

The move sets up a standoff between Trump and Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, whom he accused of blocking Means' nomination and called "a very disloyal person."

Means was a key ally of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. but lacked the ​votes to advance from the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, which Cassidy chairs.

She is not a practicing doctor and is ​an integral part of the Make America Healthy Again movement that has undermined vaccines. Her brother Calley Means works ⁠for the White House.

Cassidy's office did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Trump's accusation or Saphier's nomination.
Means was not immediately reachable.

FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR ​TAPPED FOR ROLE

As the nation's doctor, the surgeon general provides Americans with the best scientific information available on how to improve their health and reduce ​risk of illness and injury.

Saphier, who works at Memorial Sloan Kettering, is the author of books including "Make America Healthy Again: How Bad Behavior and Big Government Caused a Trillion Dollar Crisis."

"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," Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

He said in an earlier post that Means would continue to fight for the Kennedy-led Make America ​Healthy Again movement despite Cassidy's opposition to her nomination.

"Despite Senator Cassidy's intransigence and political games, Casey will continue to fight for MAHA on the many important Health issues ‌facing our ⁠Country," Trump said.

Kennedy praised Means as one of his movement's "most powerful evangelist" in a post on X and accused Cassidy of "doing the dirty work for entrenched interests" by stalling her nomination. He said Means would remain a close partner.

THIRD ATTEMPT TO FILL POST

Means was Trump's second nominee for the role after he withdrew his prior pick, Janette Nesheiwat, in May. Both nominations faced opposition from far-right activists, including Laura Loomer, who is known to have Trump's ear.

Means ​faced pointed questioning from Democrats and some ​Republicans, including Cassidy, at a contentious ⁠February confirmation hearing over her views on vaccines, birth control and other areas of public health policy, as well as potential financial conflicts of interest.

She said vaccines are "a key part of any infectious disease public health strategy" but ​declined to directly reject a long-discredited claim linking vaccines to autism promoted by Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist.

​Lisa Gilbert, co-president of ⁠watchdog Public Citizen, called the withdrawal of Means' nomination a "clear-cut victory for public health."

"Casey Means is unqualified and unfit to be Surgeon General and the withdrawal of her nomination is a win for the American public," she said in an emailed statement.

Saphier, unlike Means, holds an active medical license. She is director of ⁠breast imaging ​at Memorial Sloan Kettering, with a doctor of medicine degree from Ross University School of ​Medicine in Barbados and fellowships at the Mayo Clinic.

She shares some commonalities with the Kennedy-led movement; her book discusses preventing chronic diseases through lifestyle factors such as diet and exercise.

Senator Cassidy just came in third, in his Louisiana primary, yesterday.  Big Pharma will lose a lot of clout in the U.S. Senate. Cassidy will no longer be running HHS after the first of next year:

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/republican-cassidy-faces-trump-retribution-effort-louisiana-senate-primary-2026-05-16/

Republican Senator Cassidy loses re-election to Trump retribution campaign
By David Morgan - May 16, 2026

Summary

• Cassidy loses re-nomination after opposing Trump in impeachment trial
• Letlow and Fleming advance to June runoff for Republican Senate nomination
• Winner expected to face Democrat Jamie Davis in November general election

May 16 (Reuters) - Two-term Republican U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy lost his bid for re-election in Louisiana's primary on Saturday, as Trump-backed challenger Julia Letlow and state Treasurer John Fleming ​advanced to a June runoff to choose the party's nominee after a closely fought three-way battle.

Cassidy, a physician who first earned the president's ire by voting for his conviction ‌in Trump's second Senate impeachment trial in 2021, was projected to finish in third place in a political victory for Trump's retribution campaign that recently unseated several Republican senators in Indiana who defied his push for state congressional re-districting.

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He is the first elected U.S. senator to lose re-nomination since 2012.Letlow, who won Trump's Senate endorsement before she had even announced her candidacy, led Fleming 45.2% to 28.3% with 98% of votes counted, the Associated Press reported.

The two candidates will now face each other in a ​June 27 run-off election to determine which candidate will confront Democrat Jamie Davis, who was projected to win his party's nomination, in the November general election.

The winner of the runoff is likely ​to fill the seat, according to independent analysts who rate Louisiana as solidly Republican.

"THANK YOU, LOUISIANA! Louisiana made it clear tonight: we are ready for strong ⁠conservative leadership that will stand with President Trump and never waver. Because of your support, your prayers, and your belief in this campaign, we are one step closer to sending that leadership to the United ​States Senate," Letlow said in a post on X.

Trump congratulated and praised Letlow on social media while gloating about Cassidy's loss. "His disloyalty to the man who got him elected is now a part of legend, and ​it’s nice to see that his political career is OVER!" Trump said in a lengthy post on Saturday night.
In his concession speech, Cassidy thanked his supporters for allowing him to represent Louisiana for 12 years.

"When you participate in democracy, sometimes it doesn't turn out the way you want it to. But you don't pout. You don't whine. You thank the voters for the privilege of representing the state or the country for as long as you've had that privilege," Cassidy said.

TRUMP RETRIBUTION ​CAMPAIGN

The Louisiana primary was the latest venue for an ongoing Trump retribution campaign that delivered primary defeats this month against at least five of seven Republican state legislators in Indiana, who opposed the president's push ​for a mid-decade congressional redistricting plan to protect the Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Next week, Trump's campaign moves to Kentucky, where the president hopes to see his hand-picked primary challenger Ed Gallrein defeat Republican U.S. Representative ‌Thomas Massie, a ⁠Trump critic and leading voice in the campaign to release government files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, an erstwhile friend of the president.

Letlow, 45, entered Congress when her husband Luke died of a COVID infection after being elected to the House in 2020. She ran to replace him in a special election and succeeded with Trump's endorsement.

Cassidy had targeted her support for diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives when she worked for the University of Louisiana at Monroe. She responded with ads calling Cassidy and Fleming "Never Trumpers" and emphasizing her presidential endorsement.

Cassidy, a 68-year-old doctor who specialized in the treatment of liver disease and helped found a Baton Rouge clinic that ​serves low-income patients, served in the Louisiana Senate ​and the U.S. House before unseating former Democratic ⁠U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu in 2014 to become the first Republican to capture the seat since 1883.

He now chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions [HELP] Committee. He was re-elected in 2020 with nearly 60% of the vote.

CASSIDY VOTED TO IMPEACH TRUMP

Cassidy had a series of conflicts with Trump beginning with his role in 2021 as one ​of seven Republicans who supported Trump's impeachment after the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters. He is now one of only ​three still in office.

Cassidy later ⁠called on Trump to drop out of the 2024 presidential race after his indictment for allegedly mishandling classified documents and declined to endorse Trump after he won the Republican nomination.

Since Trump's return to the White House, Cassidy has tried to work his way back into the president's good graces by supporting Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s nomination for U.S. health secretary.

But Cassidy's support for Trump health policy has been short-lived, with him expressing open skepticism for Kennedy's ⁠bid to overhaul ​U.S. vaccine policy and joining fellow Republican Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski to slow the health secretary's agenda in Congress.

The ​most recent break came last month when Trump accused Cassidy of blocking the nomination of Casey Means as U.S. surgeon general, forcing the president to name radiologist and Fox News contributor Nicole Saphier as his third pick for the job.

Former Republican Senator Richard Lugar was ​the last elected incumbent to lose his bid for re-nomination in 2012.

The MAHA Report on Sen. Cassidy's unexpected primary collapse: “MAHA was not acting as Trump’s instrument. It was acting on its own political logic."  Note that the MAHA coalition is coalescing on Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kansas as the next Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP):

https://www.themahareport.com/p/bill-cassidys-demise-signals-mahas

Bill Cassidy’s Demise Signals MAHA’s Rise
In Louisiana primary, Senator Bill Cassidy is defeated, proving that MAHA has come of age as a political force
By Margaret Menge - May 18, 2026

The MAHA movement came into its own as a major force in American politics on Saturday, taking its first scalp by helping to defeat United States Senator Bill Cassidy in his run for re-election in Louisiana.

The moment wasn’t lost on Tony Lyons, president of MAHA PAC, which supported Cassidy’s chief rival, Louisiana Rep. Julia Letlow.

“This is a powerful indication that MAHA is a gift to the Republican Party,” Lyons told The MAHA Report on Sunday. “Candidates who accept that gift will be rewarded in the midterms. Senator Cassidy defended Big Pharma and the broken medical establishment against the health and welfare of American families. Voters across the country are joining the MAHA rebellion because they are fed up with the corruption that allowed companies to poison their children. They just won’t accept it anymore.”

MAHA PAC supported Letlow with significant financial backing and grassroots mobilizing.

“We worked very hard to ensure that Julia Letlow dominated the primary,” Lyons said. “In addition to spending $750,000 of the $1,000,000 total pledged, we encouraged thousands of MAHA influencers to support Letlow on their platforms. This group of MAHA influencers represents more than 200,000,000 followers.”

MAHA PAC also produced many effective short video ads, texts and mailers — among them, some against Cassidy and others pro-Letlow.

Cassidy is the senator who held up the confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services, forcing him to commit to giving Cassidy unprecedented say over hiring and policymaking in the agency. Cassidy also firebombed Kennedy’s pick for CDC director, Dave Weldon, and his pick for Surgeon General, Casey Means. And he held hearings at which he knew Kennedy would be attacked by former CDC employees, while initially denying the secretary an opportunity to testify in his own defense.

Cassidy also fought against Kennedy’s plan to reduce the high number of childhood vaccines. Despite Kennedy and others like Aaron Siri presenting strong evidence that many of the vaccines on the CDC schedule of recommended childhood vaccination carry serious risks of harm and even death, Cassidy, a physician, continued to insist that they are perfectly safe.

“Regarding vaccines, Mr. Kennedy has been insistent that he just wants good science and to ensure safety,” Cassidy said on the Senate floor before voting to confirm Kennedy as Secretary of HHS in February of 2025. “But on this topic, the science is good. The science is credible. Vaccines save lives. They are safe. They do not cause autism. There are multiple studies that show this. They are a crucial part of our nation’s public health response.”

In Louisiana on Saturday, Cassidy’s political career came to a sudden end as he was defeated in the Republican primary, coming in third after Rep. Julia Letlow – now a congresswoman representing Louisiana’s 5th Congressional District who was endorsed by President Trump – and John Fleming, the Louisiana state treasurer who served in the first Trump administration, at HHS, and then at the White House as an assistant to the president.

Trump endorsed Letlow even before she announced she would challenge Cassidy, writing on Truth Social in January: “I know Julia well, have seen her tested at the highest and most difficult level and she is a total winner. Should she decide to enter this race, Julia Letlow has my complete and total endorsement, run Julia, run.”

Cassidy is the first sitting U.S. Senator to be defeated in a primary since 2012, when longtime Indiana Senator Richard Lugar was defeated by state treasurer Richard Mourdock.

Letlow was the clear leader on Saturday, winning 45 percent of the vote, compared to 28 percent for Fleming and 25 percent for Cassidy – a paltry showing for a two-term United States Senator.

The two highest vote getters – Letlow and Fleming – will now face off in a June 27 runoff, with the winner facing the Democratic nominee in November.

Aaron Siri, writing on X, noted that Cassidy’s loss comes two years after another U.S. senator faced a tough re-election battle for the opposite reason. In 2021, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin broke away from the pack and held his own hearings in rooms in the Senate office buildings to give a voice to people who’d been injured by the Covid-19 vaccine. These were non-official hearings that he and his staff live-streamed and to which he invited his Senate colleagues. None came. Johnson alone among U.S. senators listened to the stories of the vaccine-injured and worked to hold the CDC and FDA accountable for failing to warn the American public of the possibility of side effects from the mRNA vaccines made by Pfizer BioNTech and Moderna. When he ran for re-election to the Senate in 2024, powerful interest groups poured millions into the race to try to bring him down. It didn’t work.

“So, Senator Ron Johnson bravely and vigorously supported medical liberty, the vaccine injured, and vaccine safety (which the media said would tank his reelection campaign) yet he won his reelection bid, while U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy did the opposite (which the media widely hailed, praised, and supported) yet he didn’t even win his primary. A lesson for all elected officials,” wrote Siri in a post on X on Sunday.

Cassidy, who was running for election to a third term, far outspent his rivals.

Federal Election Commission records show he had $8,650,205 in contributions as of April 26, and total receipts of more than $13 million. Letlow had far less – just $795,696 in contributions and $4.4 million in total receipts.

Cassidy had significant backing from the pharmaceutical industry, including contributions from political action committees connected to Pfizer, Merck, Sanofi, Abbott Laboratories, Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Takeda and Glaxo Smith Kline. Contributors also included the National Community Pharmacists Association PAC, the National Confectioners Association of the United States Inc. (known as CANDY PAC), the Health Industry Distributors Association PAC, and the Alliance for Pharmacy Compounding PAC.

FEC records also show a $1,000 contribution from Stanley Plotkin, known as the “godfather of vaccines” and who has become infamous after admitting under oath in a deposition with attorney Siri that dozens of infants were killed to develop vaccines and that participants in many of the vaccine safety trials he supervised were only followed for a few days or a few weeks, too short a time for any participant to be diagnosed with a chronic disease like autism or asthma.

Why else did Cassidy lose? Certainly not just because of President Trump’s endorsement of Letlow, as medical freedom activist Sayer Ji points out in a Substack post on Sunday.

“MAHA was not acting as Trump’s instrument,” he writes. “It was acting on its own political logic – the logic of a movement that watches who chairs one-sided hearings against the official they sent to Washington to reform captured health agencies, and responds accordingly.” Cassidy will continue to serve in the U.S. Senate until next January, when his Senate term expires. It’s not known, however, whether he will continue to serve as chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, or whether another chairman will be appointed.

Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kansas, also a physician and the chairman of the new MAHA Caucus in the U.S. Senate, may be next in line for the job.

Marshall gave one of the strongest endorsements of Kennedy during his confirmation hearings in January of 2025, telling him he is “the” person for the job and that God has a divine purpose for him as Secretary of HHS.