On Wednesday, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee held confirmation hearings for President Donald Trump’s nominee for Surgeon General, Dr. Casey Means. After Trump rescinded his nomination of Dr. Janette Nesheiwat in early May 2025, he followed this with Means’ nomination. The Surgeon General confirmation hearing was supposed to take place in October 2025, but Means, who was pregnant at the time, went into labor five hours before the hearing was scheduled to start.
Means’ nomination has come under fire, both from those who consider themselves MAHA faithful and those who adhere to the corporate and traditional model of modern medicine.
“I believe vaccines save lives”. ~Casey Means, MD
Now you know what she says about vaccines.
She deserves to be no where NEAR US healthcare in any capacity–same as the rest of her career since quitting residency. https://t.co/aa5fTIXdQu
— Dr Mollie James (@molsjames) February 25, 2026
The Left-leaning Cato Institute considers this cabinet-level position to be a waste of taxpayer resources and feels that Congress should eliminate it altogether.
The US surgeon general has morphed from an apolitical supervisor of medical personnel to a divisive activist who undermines public health. Successive administrations have turned the Office of the Surgeon General into a highly political platform that opines on divisive non–public health issues ranging from gun control and social media to labor and housing policy. Such mission creep undermines the effectiveness of legitimate government public health activities.
The surgeon general oversees the 6,000-member Public Health Service Commissioned Corps—a uniformed, noncombatant service that provides personnel for various federal agencies, including many non–public health roles. The Commissioned Corps takes longer to deploy than civilian alternatives, and many of its functions are redundant. A 2010 report from the Department of Health and Human Services estimated that employing Corps officers costs 15 percent more than hiring civilians. Replacing Corps officers with equivalent civilian employees could save $1.3 billion annually.
Eliminating the surgeon general’s divisive political advocacy would be a step toward restoring trust in public health officials. Congress should dissolve the Office of the Surgeon General and the Commissioned Corps, eliminate their non–public health activities, and reassign any legitimate public health activities to other agencies.
Some food for thought. The difference here is that the Trump administration has disrupted the concept of traditional government, so there is no reason to believe this will not happen with the role of Surgeon General.
The over two-hour hearing was mostly peaceful. Means came off as poised, confident, sure of her facts and information, and thoughtful and deliberate in her responses. As my colleague Rusty Weiss documented, the fireworks came from a testy exchange between Ranking Member Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), where Mullin told Sanders, “You’re part of the system. You’re part of the problem. You’ve been sitting here longer than I’ve even been alive.”
Glorious to behold because it spoke to some of what the Cato white paper discussed: that nothing has been resolved in healthcare, so the role of Surgeon General has been used as a political tool and a ping-pong ball, rather than an ally to assist Americans toward more improved health.
Mullin also said, “God forbid we change and try to fix a broken system.”
Sen./Dr. Roger Marshall (R-KS) introduced Means and said, “We need the Surgeon General, the nation’s doctor, to guide us back to health,” to move America from “reactive sick care to proactive healthcare.”
Marshall alluded to past Surgeons General who made a difference in public health, and communicated generationally so that change could happen in families as well as individuals.
MARSHALL: And that’s what I think Dr. Means can be. I think she could move the needle. We do have a chronic health epidemic, no one can deny that. And like I said before, we need a Surgeon General who’s more than an educator: we need a coach, we need a communicator, we need a cheerleader to address these chronic diseases, and I believe that Dr. Casey Means is the person for the job.
Chairman Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), also a medical doctor, grilled Means on vaccines. Means was consistent in speaking to informed consent and that the benefits and risks of medications be clearly outlined by medical personnel.
WATCH:
Surgeon General nominee Casey Means says she will be a proponent of informed consent for vaccines.
“I think it’s very important as a physician to rebuild trust in public health.”
“And to make sure that patients are encouraged to have informed consent with their doctor before… pic.twitter.com/IXEQV0zxkG
— Children’s Health Defense (@ChildrensHD) February 25, 2026
Read More: Bernie Sanders Gets Torched in Fiery Hearing: ‘You’ve Been Sitting Here Longer Than I’ve Been Alive!’
President Trump Gives Full-Throated Support to Surgeon General Nominee Dr. Casey Means
The hearing mostly danced around actual policy and implementation of the Surgeon General role, because, as the Cato interview referenced, the role has become an “all things to all people” position dependent upon the political leanings of the administration under which one serves.
The Democrat senators were obsessed with HHS Secretary Kennedy’s stance on vaccines and whether Means would push back on this, and a good majority of the senators on both sides were insistent that, as Surgeon General, Means should advocate for or encourage certain medical or societal procedures or aspects, whether it is vaccines or smartphone use among minors.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), and Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD) were fixated on Means’ entrepreneurial businesses and sponsorships, attempting to paint Means as someone who would not have the public trust because of her alternative medical direction and online enterprises. Murphy practically sneered at her about Means’ large Instagram following, and accused her of conflicts of interest. Means pushed back on them all, but did so respectfully.
A handful of the Republican senators (Mullin, Marshall, Cassidy, and Alabama’s Tommy Tuberville) actually asked questions about how Means would coordinate with the other government health agencies, or how Means saw herself filling the Surgeon General role, and what she planned to bring to the table.
Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) tried to make an issue over Means’ medical license being inactive. Kim alleged that she might not be capable of leading the Commission Corps, which is required to have up-to-date licensure, and that this lack of an active license made her less credible to the American people.
Means was by no means combative, but she did push back on Kim’s veiled insult. Means interrupted him,
Senator Kim, I’m a medical doctor. I graduated from Stanford University School of Medicine. I have a medical license.
My professional history is a feature, it’s not a bug. I have a professional history that has merged entrepreneurship, public health advocacy, faculty, course direction at Stanford University, as well as being the editor of a medical journal and a biological researcher. And in these complex times for American healthcare, this type of multi-disciplinary history is going to be extremely valuable for the American people.
Means tried to further explain her extensive practitioner and surgical background and her vision for the Commission Corps.
I really look forward to working with the Commission Corps. This is an incredible group of 5,000 uniformed officers who are committing their lives to working with the American people —
Kim tried to shut her down, saying that her lack of active licensure was a point of concern and should be addressed, then quickly yielded back his time. Chairman Cassidy allowed Means to finish her response.
This incredible group of officers has traditionally been deployed for public health emergencies like natural disasters and infectious disease, and I think there’s a huge opportunity to actually work with these members who are interested in approaching the chronic disease epidemic, which has not traditionally been a part of their role. And I think that bringing that perspective, and a demonstrated history of work in this area is going to be a really positive development for the Commissions Corps.
Sen. Marshall asked how Means saw herself filling the role of Surgeon General. Means was direct, detailed, and eloquent in her response.
My dream for this role is, first and foremost to help nudge, push,inspire our healthcare systems towards focusing on root causes and the reasons why we’re getting sick, moving towards a real healthcare system and not just a reactive sick-care system. Which is, of course, also going to lower costs monumentally and unburden American taxpayers and doctors.
I want to see affordable, accessible, real, nutritious food for all Americans because we know that nutition and food is one of the key, most important drivers of chronic illness or of health, and we’re not eating real food we’re eating 70 percent ultra-processed food right now, and there are structural barriers to making that possible that good policy and reforming the healthcare system could fix, and I believe there’s political will and cultural momentum to do so, and I look forward to being a leader in that.
And I would say, lastly, a key passion of mine is to understand how the cumulative burden of the exposures we have in our environment across food, water, air, soil, the products we’re putting in and on our bodies, how these are affecting our health. We know that these diseases are going up rapidly, and of course genetics have not changed over the past 20, 30, 40, 50 years — it’s environmental exposures that are making us sick, and we have not prioritized studying that. And the NIH and the MAHA movement is focused on looking at this. I think this is going to be a rapid accelerant of understanding why we’re sick and how to heal.
Means re-echoed the words from her opening statement: “Nothing is more urgent than returning wholeness for Americans, physically, mentally, and societally.”
Editor’s Note: With President Trump back in the White House, the state of our Union is strong once again.
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