‘This Is Arguably Witchcraft’: Trump Pulls Surgeon General Pick After Right-Wing Influencer Laura Loomer Complains, But New Candidate Casey Means Faces Even More MAGA Backlash
Far-right MAGA influencer Laura Loomer has amassed a pretty impressive collection of heads on her platter, having taken credit for the dismissal of the head of the National Security Agency and, just this week, the president’s nominee for surgeon general.
Dr. Janette Nesheiwat’s nomination to be the nation’s top doc was withdrawn Wednesday on the eve of her Senate confirmation hearing. The reason? She was too pro-vaccine, explained Loomer.
But the 31-year-old conspiracy theorist, who has Donald Trump’s ear, much to his inner circle’s chagrin, might be having second thoughts about sacrificing Nesheiwat.
Trump has turned to wellness influencer Casey Means as the new nominee, even though she never completed her residency and is not a practicing physician.
On Truth Social, the president wrote Means “has the potential to be one of the finest Surgeon Generals in United States History.”
Or at least that’s what controversial Health and Human Services Director Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told him. RFK Jr. celebrated the appointment of his longtime ally, writing on X, she “was born to hold this job.”
“She will provide our country with ethical guidance, wisdom, and gold-standard medical advice even when it challenges popular orthodoxies,” Kennedy wrote. “She will be a juggernaut against the ossified medical conventions that have helped make our people the sickest in the world at the highest cost per capita.”
“Casey is a breath of fresh air, and we can’t wait for her to get started,” he concluded.
Her brother, Calley Means, a White House adviser, called his sister “the single best person in the world on connecting the dots behind our chronic diseases crisis — and her reason for existence is to help President reverse these trends.”
Loomer was incredulous.
“This is honestly insane,” Loomer wrote Thursday morning. “I do not believe for one second that Donald Trump made this decision. I refuse to believe it.”
Loomer appears to be fighting this battle alone.
Means, she alleged, “prays to inanimate objects, communicates with spirit mediums, uses shrooms as ‘plant medicine’ and talks to trees!”
But support within the MAGA-verse appears deep.
In response to a post by Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk lauding the pick, Loomer asked, “Shouldn’t the US Surgeon General have an active medical license?” Tucker Carlson also announced his support.
Loomer’s opposition seems almost personal, though she’s framed it in ideological terms. In a series of social media posts, she accuses Means of supporting gender reassignment for children, saying her views closely align with her father, author of a book supportive of trans kids.
While the right is lining up behind Means, with some exceptions, significant opposition is already forming within the medical establishment.
“She’s not even licensed,” wrote one critic. “A low-grade chiropractor is more qualified.”
Means’ qualifications are dubious. She has no government experience and said she dropped out of her surgical residency program because she became disillusioned with traditional medicine.
She traces the nation’s health problems to corrupt food conglomerates that have hooked Americans on unhealthy diets, leaving them reliant on daily medications from the pharmaceutical industry to manage obesity, diabetes and other chronic conditions, according to the Guardian.
One critic noted the unseriousness of it all, with America’s health policies decided by the likes of Loomer and RFK Jr.
“This is a pack of MAGA influencers fighting over who gets to wear the ‘purest lunatic’ crown,” wrote MAGA Cult Slayer. “You’re not watching public health decisions. You’re watching an unhinged influencer war where qualifications are lies, flamingos are weapons, and crying on camera is a career strategy.”