Moving on from Means is a blow to the Make America Healthy Again movement, and Trump and his allies blamed Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.).
Saphier, a radiologist and author, is Trump’s third nominee to be Surgeon General in his second term after Means and fellow Fox News contributor Janette Nesheiwat.
“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,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post, calling Saphier an “incredible communicator.”
Trump and his allies directly blamed Cassidy, chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, for Means’s nomination failing to advance in the Senate.
He called the senator, a physician who voted to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. despite deep concerns with his vaccine policies, “disloyal.”
The health committee said it declined to hold a vote on Means because she didn’t have the support to be confirmed.
“For months, Senator Bill Cassidy (of the GREAT State of Louisiana!), a very disloyal person whose ‘TRUMP’ Endorsement got him elected, but later voted to impeach ‘President Trump’ on what has now proven to be a total Hoax and Scam, has stood in the way of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Nominee, Casey Means, for the important position of U.S. Surgeon General,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Kennedy also joined in the attacks, writing on social media: “By sabotaging this appointment, Bill Cassidy once again did the dirty work for entrenched interests seeking to stall the MAHA movement and protect the very status quo that has made America the sickest nation on earth.”
White House senior adviser Calley Means, Casey’s brother, echoed these sentiments.
“Bill Cassidy is a mindless avatar for his donors and a blind defender of the status quo system that is profiting from American sickness,” he added. “At every turn during Casey’s confirmation, Bill Cassidy worked to delay her and smear her.”
