Trump’s Former Surgeon General Rips the President’s Current Nominee: ‘The Nation’s Doctor’ Wouldn’t Be a Doctor

AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File

Donald Trump’s surgeon general during his first term, Dr. Jerome Adams, is speaking out against the president’s pick to be the nation’s top doctor during his second term.

Trump nominated Casey Means, a Stanford-educated physician and former ear, nose, and throat surgeon who left conventional medicine and let her license to practice lapse in favor of becoming a wellness influencer. Means’s approach to “functional medicine” is favored by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his Make America Healthy Again movement.

That fact does not sit well with Adams, who told The Washington Post Sunday, “The role of surgeon general has centuries of precedent and requirements, and she doesn’t meet them,” noting that if Means is confirmed,  she would not be appointed as a physician, but under the category of “health-service worker.”

“The irony would be the nation’s doctor wouldn’t even be in the corps as a doctor,” Adams said.

Means was put forth by Trump in May 2025, but her nomination remains on hold in the Senate, where both Republicans and Democrats question her stance on vaccines and disdain for the traditional medical establishment.

“Nearly 11 months after her nomination, it is not clear how it moves forward, with some lawmakers openly frustrated with health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s moves to change vaccine policy and disinclined to confirm another one of his allies,” The Post reported, noting that “No past surgeon general has come forward to defend Means” in her confirmation fight.

Calley Means, a White House official and Casey Means’s brother, targeted Adams on X as a “democratic activist,” writing last month, “You were a lightweight as surgeon general and aren’t in the same stratosphere as Casey in terms of intelligence, which is obvious to litterally [sic] everyone who knows both of you.”

If she is confirmed, Means would oversee the Public Health Commissioned Corps, a 6,000-person force of government health workers, according to The Post.

Means did not respond to The Post’s request for comment. However, in a written response to questions from senators, Means took aim at her predecessors’ records, writing, “Notably, under the tenures of our recent past Surgeon Generals, America’s health and lifespans have worsened.”

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