Dr. Casey Means, Trump’s surgeon general nominee, has hearing delayed
Dr. Casey Means, President Donald Trump’s surgeon general nominee, is in labor and her confirmation hearing, scheduled for Thursday morning at 11 a.m. ET, has been postponed, according to two people familiar and a HELP Committee spokesperson.
Means was expected to face stiff questioning from Democrats on the Senate’s health committee about her ties to a wellness company she co-founded and her promotion of supplements online and on podcasts, according to people familiar with their approach and a letter addressed to Means by a Democrat on the committee.
Means, a health entrepreneur who in 2018 left her residency program in Oregon just months before graduating because she was “disillusioned with the practice and incentives of surgical care,” promised in ethics filings to resign from the company, Levels Health, Inc., and to stop promoting wellness products while serving as surgeon general.
But Democrats on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), are likely to make those sources of income a focus of at her anticipated hearing.
In a letter addressed to Means and first obtained by ABC News, Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., wrote, “Even after your divestiture, your recent financial ties to various wellness companies may reasonably lead the public to question whether you are distorting health advice from the Office of the Surgeon General to benefit your former clients.”
“If Means refuses to recuse herself from government decisions that could help her former clients, how can we be sure that as Surgeon General she will put Americans' health above special interests?” Warren wrote in a statement to ABC News.
Warren does not sit on the HELP Committee and will not attend Thursday’s hearing.
Kim, a freshman senator who sits on the committee, said in a statement that Americans “deserve” to know the nation’s top doctor has their health and wellness in mind first, not personal financial profit.
“I'm worried about that kind of person when it comes to making decisions and talking to the American people about how best to be able to inform the American people how to stay healthy,” Kim told ABC News before leaving the Capitol on Wednesday.
Means reacted defensively to questions about her potential conflicts of interest at a meeting on Monday with staffers of Democratic HELP Committee members, several sources with knowledge of the meeting told ABC News.
At one point, according to three sources, Means brought up former President Joe Biden’s surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, noting the hundreds of thousands of dollars he’d made during the pandemic as a consultant to Carnival Cruise Line before being nominated for the role in 2021.
Means, according to the people familiar with the exchange, appeared frustrated with what she saw as Democrats’ unwillingness to challenge Murthy in 2021 with the same zeal with which staffers in Monday’s meeting questioned her own financial conflicts.
No members of the HELP Committee, Democratic or Republican, brought up Murthy’s coronavirus-related consulting at his 2021 confirmation hearing, according to a publicly available transcript.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., told ABC News Wednesday that her staff had told her Means had an “unwillingness to be responsive to staff questions” at the Monday meeting.
A person familiar with Baldwin’s thinking later told ABC News that the senator was “deeply concerned that Casey Means will prioritize her politics, President Trump’s wishes, and her own financial interests over Americans’ health and the consensus of the scientific community.”
Emily Hilliard, a Dept. of Health and Human Services spokeswoman, disputed the characterization of Monday’s meeting between Means and Democratic staffers.
"Dr. Means met with committee staff in good faith, while 40 weeks pregnant, and responded fully and professionally to all questions. Any suggestion that she was ‘defensive’ or ‘unwilling to respond’ is inaccurate and mischaracterizes the discussion," Hilliard said in a statement to ABC News.
Means “continues to engage openly with Senators from both parties as part of the confirmation process,” she added, saying Means “is focused on preparing for her confirmation hearing and on advancing the administration’s public health priorities, not political theater."
Meanwhile, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., a physician and the chair of the HELP Committee, said he is expecting a productive hearing Thursday.
“[Senator Cassidy] looks forward to discussing with Dr. Means how she will accomplish President Trump’s mission of delivering radical transparency and restoring trust in our health institutions,” a Cassidy spokesperson told ABC News on Wednesday.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., applauded Means’ medical knowledge. “I think that she'll give some great advice -- that's what she does, give advice to the president,” Tuberville told ABC News.
“We've got a lot of problems with our food and our vaccines and everything out there in terms of our health care is going to hell in a hand basket, and [we’re] just looking for some guidance from somebody that's got a little common sense. It might come from a different perspective,” Tuberville said.
Several Democrats who spoke to ABC News shared concerns about Means, but Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., joined with Tuberville in commending Means. He said he had a positive meeting with Means earlier this week.
“We had a very good discussion,” Hickenlooper told ABC News, adding, “She's an interesting person with an interesting background. I look forward to hearing what she says.”
