The New Surgeon General Nominee Has A Maha Problem

Leaders in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again movement are outraged over President Donald Trump’s surgeon general nominee switch.

Since Trump announced on Thursday that Nicole Saphier, a radiologist and former Fox News medical contributor, would replace Casey Means, a close ally of the health secretary, as the president’s pick for the nation’s “top doctor,” they’ve rushed to social media to share why they believe Trump’s decision is short sighted.

“Dr. Saphier would be a catastrophic mistake on messaging and communicating with MAHA at a time where the coalition is very fragile,” Alex Clark, a prominent MAHA activist who hosts a podcast for the conservative political group Turning Point USA, wrote in a Friday post to X for her 166,000 followers.

Trump withdrew Means' nomination, according to her and the White House, because she didn’t have enough Republican support to secure Senate confirmation. Trump on Thursday championed Saphier, calling her an “INCREDIBLE COMMUNICATOR” who will fulfill MAHA’s mission in his announcement about the appointment on his social media platform Truth Social.

Kennedy’s backers have publicly bashed Trump’s move, arguing Saphier is out of step with the movement and warning that her confirmation risks further weakening the already strained MAHA-MAGA alliance. Their disdain adds to the list of grievances MAHA members have with the Trump administration and could dampen their enthusiasm for Republican candidates in the midterms. The White House is counting on the alliance to help GOP candidates.

Clark and other MAHA activists are also calling to dismantle the surgeon general’s office if Means can’t have the job.

“My position isn’t to replace Dr. Saphier. It’s to completely DOGE the Surgeon General role. If we don’t, we risk accelerating the loss of one of the most activated voting blocs the GOP is already watching slip away,” Clark added, referring to the government initiative tech billionaire Elon Musk led last year to cut federal spending.

But while MAHA activists are opposing Saphier’s nomination, she’s already earned Kennedy’s stamp of approval.

“Dr. Nicole Saphier is a long-time warrior for the MAHA movement,” Kennedy wrote in a post to X on Thursday.

Saphier is a more traditional choice for surgeon general than Means, whose unconventional approach to medicine raised concern among Republican senators. A Ross University School of Medicine graduate, Saphier completed her diagnostic radiology residency at Creighton University in Arizona and now serves as the director of breast imaging at Memorial Sloan Kettering’s Monmouth, New Jersey, location.

Means left her head and neck surgical residency in 2018 after becoming disillusioned with the U.S. medical system and doesn't hold an active medical license. Her various social media and wellness ventures have given her cache in the MAHA movement. She wrote a best-selling book, "Good Energy," on the root causes of chronic illness. The book also endorses alternative medicine, like taking psychedelics to treat mental health disorders.

Clark and other MAHA activists met with White House officials, as well as Means, last month to address concerns about the administration’s commitment to the MAHA agenda.

Vani Hari, another leading MAHA activist and close friend of Means, echoed Clark’s sentiments in a post to X on Friday.

“DOGE the Surgeon General!!! We want medical freedom!!!! If not Casey - we take no one!” Hari wrote.

White House spokesman Kush Desai defended Saphier against the MAHA leaders’ attacks in a statement to POLITICO.

“Dr. Nicole Saphier is an accomplished physician who has practiced radiology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering and has been [an] outspoken voice on breast cancer prevention, intrusive COVID-19 mandates, the politicization of science, and the federal government’s role in America’s chronic disease epidemic,” Desai wrote. “She will be a powerful asset for President Trump and work tirelessly to deliver on every facet of his MAHA agenda.”

While some in MAHA lash out against Saphier’s nomination, a number of vaccine skeptics aligned with Kennedy are cheering it. Among them is Joseph Varon, a Houston physician and president of the Independent Medical Alliance, a coalition of health care professionals that question vaccine safety.

"Nicole Saphier is exactly who America needs as Surgeon General, a real doctor, treating real patients, who has the spine to tell the truth even when it's unpopular," Varon said in a statement posted to social media.

Robert Malone, a MAHA activist who resigned in March from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s outside vaccine advisory committee after a federal judge effectively dissolved the panel, characterized Saphier’s positions in a Substack post on Thursday as “moderate-MAHA."

But Saphier was an early adopter — even before Kennedy — of the movement’s slogan.

Her book, “Make America Healthy Again: How Bad Behavior and Big Government Caused a Trillion-Dollar Crisis,” came out in 2020 — years before Kennedy adopted the tagline. The book advocates for “personal responsibility,” over “socialized medicine,” to improve Americans’ overall health. The message leans into Kennedy’s focus on individual autonomy over one's health.

Beyond the MAHA slogan, Saphier’s alignment with Kennedy’s agenda is mixed.

She’s embraced loosening childhood vaccine guidance and revamping American dietary guidelines. But she’s also questioned Kennedy’s push to identify the cause of autism.

She’s endorsed the combination measles, mumps and rubella shot, pushing back against unproven claims, which Kennedy has in the past made, that it’s linked to autism.

“The overwhelming majority of research — good research — shows that there is no causal link,” she said on Fox News last year. However, she noted that the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics should be “less stringent” with their respective vaccine guidance and has criticized routinely immunizing children for Covid-19.

Saphier also questioned Kennedy’s decision to tap a vaccine skeptic to investigate links between vaccines and autism for the health department in an op-ed published to The Wall Street Journal last year.

She largely defended HHS’ decision to pare back the vaccine schedule in January, while offering some criticism on the policy change’s “rollout and communication.” A federal judge has blocked the change for now.

Trump and Kennedy had pointed to slimmer schedules in other countries as reason to downsize America’s, but Saphier said she didn’t buy that reasoning.

“I don’t think we should be saying ‘Hey, we just want to do what other countries are doing.’ Absolutely not. We’re the United States,” she said on her podcast, “Wellness Unmasked with Dr. Nicole Saphier,” in January.

“We should be leaders on the international stage, not followers,” she added. “And by the way, we can’t really compare ourselves to, like, Denmark and Japan. It’s like apples and oranges.”

Sophie Gardner contributed to this report.