Trump nominates Dr. Erica Schwartz as new CDC director
President Donald Trump nominated Dr. Erica Schwartz, a former deputy surgeon general, on Thursday as the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
"It is my Honor to nominate the incredibly talented Dr. Erica Schwartz as my Director of the CDC," Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
If confirmed by the Senate, Schwartz would replace Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), who took over as acting CDC director in February.
Schwartz earned a medical degree from Brown University and served in the U.S. Navy until 2005.
She served in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, as the Coast Guard Chief Medical Officer and as Deputy Surgeon General from 2019 to early 2021, during the first Trump administration.
Trump also announced new appointments to other CDC and HHS positions in the Truth Social post.
"These Highly Respected Doctors of Medicine have the knowledge, experience, and TOP degrees to restore the GOLD STANDARD OF SCIENCE at the CDC, which was an absolute disaster focused on “mandates” under Sleepy Joe," Trump wrote. "Together, they will do a TREMENDOUS job leading the CDC as we continue to MAKE AMERICA HEALTHY AND GREAT AGAIN!"
Schwartz is the fourth person named or nominated as head of the CDC since last summer.
Dr. Susan Monarez was confirmed as CDC director in July 2025, but she held the post for less than a month. Monarez was fired by Kennedy for reportedly not rubber-stamping the health secretary's vaccine agenda or firing high-ranking CDC leaders whom he opposed.
The turmoil led to both Kennedy and Monarez appearing in front of Senate committees to address the ousting.
At a Senate hearing in September 2025, Monarez said she was fired by Trump and Kennedy for "holding the line on scientific integrity."
Kennedy, in a hearing before a different Senate panel earlier that month, disputed Monarez's version of events. He denied telling Monarez to accept vaccine recommendations without scientific evidence, and claimed she was fired in part because she told him she was untrustworthy.
After Monarez was fired, Jim O'Neill, who served as Kennedy's HHS deputy secretary, was named as acting CDC director and signed off on the CDC decision to reduce the number of vaccines recommended for children and remove the universal recommendation for the hepatitis B vaccine at birth.
These decisions were later temporarily blocked by a federal judge.
A White House official told ABC News earlier this year that Bhattacharya would take over as head of the CDC and O'Neill would be nominated as the next head of the National Science Foundation.
