Nicole Saphier's nomination for surgeon general cleared the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Wednesday, sending it to the full Senate. The panel voted 12 to 11 in what CBS News described as a party-line vote, at a morning session the committee had set aside for votes on several Trump administration nominees.
Timothy Westlake, nominated as assistant secretary for mental health and substance use at the Department of Health and Human Services, advanced on the same en bloc vote, the Associated Press reported. The session's agenda also listed Mary Lazare for assistant secretary for aging and two nominees for the National Mediation Board, Loren Sweatt and Douglas Ralph. The AP said it was not immediately clear when the full Senate would take up Saphier and Westlake but that both are expected to be approved.
Saphier, a radiologist, is Trump's third nominee for the post. The president withdrew his previous choice, Casey Means, an ally of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., after her nomination had stalled for months, and blamed Sen. Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican who chairs the committee, calling him "a very disloyal person."
Saphier directs breast imaging at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Monmouth and was a Fox News medical contributor until her nomination. In 2020 she published a book titled "Make America Healthy Again: How Bad Behavior and Big Government Caused a Trillion-Dollar Crisis," and she is known for criticizing how public health authorities handled the COVID-19 pandemic. Trump nominated her in April, and the Senate received the nomination on May 11. He has called her a "STAR physician" and "an INCREDIBLE COMMUNICATOR, who makes complicated health issues more easily understood by all Americans."
The nomination is for a four-year term in the office Vivek Murthy resigned, and the country has not had a surgeon general since 2025. The office carries limited policymaking power, the AP noted, but makes its holder the country's most visible communicator on public health.
Much of her Sept. 16 confirmation hearing turned on vaccines. Cassidy, a physician, opened by pressing her on the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and asked whether it is "extremely lethal, as the president said." Saphier did not take up Trump's remark directly. "I do not believe the MMR vaccine to be lethal. I believe the MMR vaccine is our greatest tool for combating measles," she said. She also told the committee she does not believe childhood vaccines cause autism.
She was less categorical about hepatitis B. Saphier said the United States has "the most evidence showing universal birth-dose vaccination to be safe and effective," and when Cassidy said that stopped short of a recommendation, she answered that the overwhelming recommendation should be what has proved tried and true while leaving room for future discussion.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, the committee's ranking member, said ahead of the vote that he would oppose her, in part because she "has questioned the need for the hepatitis B vaccine at birth, when the data science has been clear." "We need a surgeon general who will tell the truth about vaccines, not someone who misleads the public," he said.
Cassidy, who led the questioning on vaccines, voted for her. He had said on CBS's "Face the Nation" after the hearing that Saphier had earned his vote, citing her statements on vaccines. "When somebody is willing to be honest to the American people and say that vaccines are safe, you should be taking it, and the consequence of not can even include death, well, what else can you ask for when it comes to vaccines?" he said.
Democrats also pressed her on political independence. Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire asked whether Saphier would break the law if Trump asked her to, and she replied, "I have no intention of breaking the law, senator." When Sen. John Hickenlooper of Colorado asked how she would protect the independence of scientists and health experts in the agencies, she said she wanted to remain a physician after her government service and "will do nothing to jeopardize that professional integrity."
Saphier built much of her testimony around preventing chronic illness. "I have long believed that we spend too much time and resources treating chronic disease after it takes hold, and not enough time helping Americans reduce their risk before illness begins," she said in her opening statement.