White House asks Senate to confirm Dr. Casey Means as American surgeon general “without further delay,” even as President Donald Trump has expressed uncertainty about the path forward.
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Sunday that he didn’t know how Means was faring in the nomination process more than a month after her. Senate confirmation hearing. “We have a lot of good candidates,” he added.
In a statement released Monday evening, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended Means’ qualifications and said Trump continued to support his nomination.
“Dr. Casey Means has spent his entire career as an entrepreneur, best-selling author and researcher, bringing attention to the chronic disease epidemic in the United States and how our health care system is failing the American people,” Leavitt said. “The President supports it and the Senate should act quickly [confirm] Dr. Means as our next surgeon general without further delay.
There is still no clear timetable for a vote in committee. The means must first be approved by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee before his nomination can move to a full Senate vote.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., the committee’s chairman, declined to say when the panel might act.
“No comment on Casey,” Cassidy told NBC News on Thursday.
Hours later, the Senate adjourned for a two-week Easter recess.
If confirmed, Means — who built her career criticizing the role of unhealthy foods in chronic disease — would be an ally of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is leading the “Make America Healthy Again” movement. His brother, Calley Means, is also a White House advisor. Means was a campaign adviser during Kennedy’s presidential bid, and many of her key messages are now central to Kennedy’s agenda.
She has been criticized by lawmakers on both sides for her controversial positions on vaccines, birth control and pesticides — topics she has previously described as dangerous to human health. She often evaded questions on these issues during her Senate confirmation hearing in February.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, asked about Means’ past skepticism of hepatitis B vaccines for newborns, telling Means: “I have to try to understand your thinking on this, given the medical consensus that this vaccine prevents this serious liver disease and liver cancer.”
Sen. Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, questioned Means about his past use of psilocybin, a hallucinogen that is illegal in the United States except for supervised treatment in Oregon and Colorado.
“It’s the connection to illegal drugs that I have a problem with,” Collins said.
Spokespeople for Murkowski and Collins did not respond to requests for comment.
Means would be an unusual choice for a general surgeon, lacking both an active medical license and a completed residency.
Former Surgeon General Jerome Adams, who served during the first Trump administration, argued that not having an active license should disqualify Means from the role, since surgeons general oversee the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps — a federal branch that requires its own agents to maintain active licenses in their respective fields.
“My main concern about Means is not about his policies or his positions on health issues (although an SG who is reluctant to recommend measles vaccines in the middle of a national outbreak seems disastrously ill-suited for the job),” Adams written last week on X. “Her failure to have an active license constitutes a failure to meet a basic operational requirement for the position.”