Who Is Trump’s Surgeon General Pick Nicole Saphier? Check Out Some Of Her Past Fox Hits

President Donald Trump nominated former Fox News contributor Nicole Saphier for surgeon general on Thursday, pulling his previous nomination for Casey Means.

Trump made his announcement regarding Saphier, a radiologist and director of breast imaging at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, on Truth Social. Saphier was a frequent face on Fox News since 2018. She left her role at the network earlier in the week.

“Nicole is a STAR physician who has spent her career guiding women facing breast cancer through their diagnosis and treatment while tirelessly advocating to increase early cancer detection and prevention, while at the same time working with men and women on all other forms of cancer diagnoses and treatments,” he wrote. “She is also an INCREDIBLE COMMUNICATOR, who makes complicated health issues more easily understood by all Americans. Dr. Nicole Saphier will do great things for our Country, and help, ‘MAKE AMERICA HEALTHY AGAIN.’ Congratulations Nicole, our Country has long been waiting for you!”

1. Saphier Slams Biden Administration for Not Testing His Mental Acuity

In an appearance on Fox’s Outnumbered in 2023, Saphier criticized former President Joe Biden’s administration for focusing on his physical fitness over his mental acuity.

“I could really care less if the president can touch his toes,” Saphier said. “It’s very disingenuous that they continue to not mention his mental acuity and not giving him a full cognitive evaluation. They completely leave that out and any 80-year-old man is supposed to be having one at his physicals.”

2. Saphier Calls on U.S. to ‘Move Forward’ From COVID Vaccine Mandates

Trump’s nominee suggested the U.S. had reached a point at which it could do away with COVID-19 vaccine mandates and allow the illness to “circulate.”

During her appearance on America’s Newsroom in 2021, Saphier emphasized society needs to “continue to protect” those who are vulnerable to the virus while the rest of society needs to “move forward.”

“We have never required a vaccine to prevent the sniffles,” she said. “People at this point have access to affordable vaccines that can reduce their risk of severe illness, and they can get boosted at this point if they want to even further reduce the risk of severe illness. At this point, it is time to move forward and allow this mild infection to circulate so we can continue to build that hybrid immunity: the combination of vaccine-induced and natural immunity, which is proven to be the most robust form of immunity that will continue to build that wall of protection.”

3. Saphier Rejects Trump’s Dismissal of the Need for Ventilators Amid Pandemic

In March of 2020, after Trump told Sean Hannity that he felt the COVID-19 numbers in some areas were inflated and “I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators,” Saphier posted a response to social media that did not name the president directly.

“Regardless of what anyone says, ventilators are low in supply and we need as many as we can possible get while we continue to #SlowTheSpread,” she wrote.

4. Saphier Argues Obamacare Is Killing People By Removing Incentives To Be Healthy

In 2020, Saphier argued that Obamacare took away the incentives for “good behavior choices” by covering people’s healthcare.

“The point is Americans are dying younger from largely preventable disease and bad health policy decisions, and the problem that I have with this is heart disease alone costs about $230 billion to the United States,” she said before later adding, “The Affordable Care Act did nothing to help that except take away, they took away the incentivizations for good behavior choices by saying that whatever, however you act, whatever you do, everything’s going to be covered, and so preventable illness is running rampant across the United States.”

Watch the clips above.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!