President Donald Trump has tapped Dr. Nicole Saphier, a radiologist and longtime Fox News contributor, to serve as the next surgeon general of the United States, the Associated Press reported Friday. The nomination ends the brief and embattled campaign of Dr. Casey Means, a Stanford-educated physician and MAHA influencer whose confirmation hearings exposed deep skepticism from senators of both parties about her experience and her stance on vaccination.
Saphier, the director of breast imaging at Memorial Sloan Kettering Monmouth, earned her medical degree from Ross University School of Medicine in Barbados and completed fellowships at the Mayo Clinic. The American College of Radiology called her a “tireless advocate for women’s health,” and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. praised her work with cancer patients as an asset in fighting the chronic disease epidemic.
Her relationship with the MAHA movement is complex. Saphier wrote a 2020 book titled Make America Healthy Again — years before Kennedy popularized the phrase — that criticized the Affordable Care Act and what she described as government failures in health care. She has promoted removing food additives, cutting ultraprocessed foods, and encouraging exercise, all central pieces of Kennedy’s platform. Yet she has also been a more vocal champion of vaccination than the health secretary. In March she praised acting CDC Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya for urging Americans to get the measles vaccine, and in September she warned that “the more vaccine confusion we create, the more preventable disease we will see.” At the same time, she has called COVID‑19 vaccination requirements in schools “a complete disaster” and linked them to declining trust in immunization.
Saphier has not hesitated to criticize the administration she now hopes to serve. Last summer, after the health department released a long‑anticipated MAHA report that cited nonexistent studies, she called it “pretty embarrassing” on her podcast. She later said the decision to fire the first CDC director, Susan Monarez, after less than a month on the job was “a mess.” “When we keep hearing radical transparency and we’re going to regain trust,” Saphier said, “I can tell you these shenanigans are taking us farther away from that mission.”
Means, whose medical license is inactive and who did not complete her surgical residency, told the AP that her failed nomination was the result of a “yearlong smear campaign.” Saphier, in a podcast shortly after Means’s hearings, said she expected Means would do well but wished she were “a little bit less involved with MAHA” and that the nominee had finished her residency and held an active license. Prominent MAHA influencers have already signaled opposition to Saphier. Turning Point USA podcaster and anti‑pesticide campaigner Alex Clark posted Friday that Saphier “gets an F when it comes to all things MAHA.”
If confirmed, Saphier would take over an office that can issue public health advisories and advocate on vaccination, though it does not set vaccine policy. She would be the third Trump nominee for the post; his first selection, Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, also a former Fox News contributor, withdrew last year after questions about her academic credentials surfaced.