{"id":8974,"date":"2025-05-08T05:27:40","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T05:27:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/trumps-first-choice-for-surgeon-general-becomes-his-latest-personnel-failure\/"},"modified":"2025-05-08T05:27:40","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T05:27:40","slug":"trumps-first-choice-for-surgeon-general-becomes-his-latest-personnel-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/trumps-first-choice-for-surgeon-general-becomes-his-latest-personnel-failure\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s first choice for surgeon general becomes his latest personnel failure"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

While some of Donald Trump’s more notable personnel decisions took a long time, he wasted little time in announcing that Fox News contributor Janette Nesheiwat would be his choice for surgeon general<\/a>: Trump made his choice just two weeks after winning a second term.<\/p>\n

While most of the president’s early personnel choices have already been confirmed by the Republican-led Senate, Nesheiwat, a family medicine physician, has waited for months for a confirmation hearing.<\/p>\n

This week, the doctor’s wait was supposed to be over: The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee was scheduled to hear directly from Nesheiwat this week. Now, there’s no need for that hearing to proceed.<\/p>\n

The president announced by way of his social media platform<\/a> that Nesheiwat’s nomination is no more — he failed to explain why — adding that he will instead nominate Dr. Casey Means for the position. The Associated Press describes Means<\/a> as a “wellness influencer with close ties to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.”<\/p>\n

Trump’s missive went on to claim that his first choice for surgeon general will work at the Department of Health and Human Services in “another capacity.”<\/p>\n

\"Janette<\/source><\/source><\/picture>
Janette Nesheiwat during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Feb. 26.<\/span>Al Dragio \/ Bloomberg via Getty Images file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For advocates of science and public health, the demise of Nesheiwat’s nomination is not exactly discouraging. A HuffPost report<\/a> from the fall detailed her background and noted the physician’s record as a Trump loyalist with little public health experience — presumably a prerequisite for a surgeon general — who made highly problematic on-air comments about hydroxychloroquine during the pandemic.<\/p>\n

Just as notably, Nesheiwat sold dietary supplements, featuring her image on the bottle, which included the highly dubious claim that within a few weeks, “your immune system will still be strengthened.”<\/p>\n

Between this and her Fox News role, the physician did not exactly have the kind of professional background one would expect to see in a surgeon general.<\/p>\n

Though it’s not yet clear why, exactly, Nesheiwat’s nomination ended, the list of Trump’s personnel failures keeps growing. The collapse<\/a> of former Rep. Matt Gaetz’s attorney general nomination helped get the ball rolling last fall, and it was soon followed by Chad Chronister’s failed nomination<\/a> to lead the Drug Enforcement Administration and former Rep. Dave Weldon’s failed nomination<\/a> to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.<\/p>\n

More recently, Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York learned that she was no longer Trump’s choice<\/a> to serve as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and two weeks later, Kathleen Sgamma, who was the president’s choice to run the Bureau of Land Management, withdrew from consideration<\/a> after the public learned of her criticisms of the Jan. 6 attack.<\/p>\n

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
<\/source><\/picture><\/a><\/div>\n

Steve legs<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an BLN political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While some of Donald Trump’s more notable personnel decisions took a long time, he wasted little time in announcing that Fox News contributor Janette Nesheiwat would be his choice for surgeon general: Trump made his choice just two weeks after winning a second term. While most of the president’s early personnel choices have already been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8975,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trump"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}