President Donald Trump has announced Dr. Nicole Saphier as his new nominee for the position of Surgeon General.
Saphier is Trump’s third nominee for the post, following the withdrawal of Casey Means from the position. Means was recommended to the president for the position by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but faced opposition in the Senate over her views on vaccinations and lack of a medical license, which stalled her confirmation.
The Surgeon General is the nation’s top doctor, providing Americans with the best information on health, including how to improve it and reduce illness and injury.
Trump announced the nomination in a post on Truth Social, where he praised Saphier and said that she 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.”
Who Is the New Surgeon General Nominee, Nicole Saphier?
Saphier is a board-certified radiologist and an associate professor at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, where she is the director of breast imaging.
An Arizona native, she completed her initial medical education at the Ross University School of Medicine in Dominica. She then moved on to a radiology residency and an oncologic imaging fellowship in Arizona.
Beyond medicine, Saphier has an extensive career in media and writing. She has served as a medical expert on Fox News since 2018 and hosts the iHeartRadio podcast, Wellness Unmasked with Dr. Nicole Saphier. She is also the author of multiple New York Times bestsellers, including Make America Healthy Again and Panic Attack: Playing Politics with Science in the Fight Against COVID-19.
What Are Nicole Saphier’s Medical Views on Vaccines and MAHA?
Saphier has shared varied views on vaccines over the years and has said she questions the vaccine schedule.
On the claim that vaccines cause either cancer or autism, she said during a 2025 radio segment that the evidence linking vaccines directly to either is limited and inconclusive. The World Health Organization has denied any link.
She has emphasized the importance of measles and polio vaccines, while questioning certain hepatitis B boosters and mandates.
She attributed the public’s distrust in vaccines to the Biden administration, rather than the Trump administration or Kennedy’s views.
Saphier’s exact alignment with Make America Healthy Again, the slogan for the movement led by Kennedy, is unclear. In 2025, she told Rolling Stone, “You can be a supporter of the MAHA movement but not agree with every facet of it.”
In 2020, she published a book titled Make America Healthy Again: How Bad Behavior and Big Government Caused a Trillion Dollar Crisis. According to Rolling Stone, prior to publishing that book, she tried to trademark the phrase “Make America Healthy Again.” She ultimately lost the trademark application.
Saphier has discussed the connection between mental and physical health on her podcast.
She has previously praised the new dietary guidelines set by Kennedy and Trump’s “Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act” in a Fox News segment.
What Has Nicole Saphier Said About Robert F. Kennedy Jr.?
In 2024, Saphier expressed mixed feelings about Kennedy’s nomination as the secretary of Health and Human Services. Speaking on Fox News Radio at the time, she said she was hoping he would be in “more of an advisory role” when she first saw his appointment.
“We’re already seeing divisiveness,” she said at the time. “I would have liked to have a bit more unity when it comes to trying to move forward in the healthcare industry.”
In that conversation, though, she credited Kennedy’s background in speaking out about health issues. “RFK Jr. has been speaking out and advocating on health issues now for at least two decades, so it’s nice to see someone taking the role who has a passion for making America healthy again,” she said.
She has voiced criticism of Kennedy, though, specifically on his use of nicotine products. She wrote in an op-ed for the New York Post in January 2025, “Here is a figure publicly advocating for health, yet engaging in the use of a highly addictive product while doing so.”
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