Forget the DEI hires – meet Trump's latest WTF hire
The US health secretary doesn't think you should really listen to him when it comes to health issues. During an appearance before House and Senate committees this week, Robert F Kennedy Jr, famous for his unconventional views about medicine and his revelation that a parasite ate part of his brain, seemed to think it was strange that lawmakers were asking him about vaccines.
'What I would say is my opinions about vaccines are irrelevant,' Kennedy said when pressed on whether he would vaccinate his child for measles. 'I don't want to seem like I'm being evasive, but I don't think people should be taking advice, medical advice, from me.' The US health secretary repeated his refrain about not wanting to give advice a number of other times.
I, on the other hand, am desperate to dole out a bit of advice. Namely: it would probably be a good idea if a few people who actually knew what they were talking about were brought into the US government. I know, I know. Look at me being a crazy idealist! Still, at the very least, it might be wise to at least ensure that the people who are in charge of health issues know a thing or two about medicine.
Alas, judging by some of Donald Trump's latest appointments, it would seem that I am asking far too much. See, for example, Dr Casey Means, who was nominated for US surgeon general last week. Means has got 'Dr' in front of her name, which sounds promising, but she's more of an influencer than a practitioner. Though she trained as a surgeon at Stanford, she never completed her medical residency afterward. Why? She says it's because she was disillusioned with traditional medicine, but a former colleague told the Los Angeles Times that it was due to anxiety. Means also doesn't have an active medical license. In short: she wouldn't be able to get a job as a doctor at your local hospital but she's being considered for the role of 'the nation's doctor'. As for experience working in government? She doesn't have any of that, either.
What Means does have, Trump announced in a recent social media post, are 'impeccable 'MAHA' credentials'. That's the 'Make America healthy again' movement: a movement that is preoccupied with some very valid issues (processed food, corruption in the health industry) but mired in conspiracist thinking. Means has been on TV a lot to talk about Maha obsessions such as removing fluoride from drinking water. She also makes money from dietary supplements that she promotes on social media and has co-authored a book with her brother that claims 'almost every chronic health symptom that Western medicine addresses is the result of our cells being beleaguered by how we've come to live'. Which, of course, isn't completely false but has been accused of being overly simplistic. Means's brother, by the way, is also a prominent adviser to Kennedy.
So are all the Maha crowd rejoicing in the streets at the idea of Means becoming surgeon general? Not quite. Her nomination has actually sparked Maha infighting. Some Maha voices think Means is not extreme enough, particularly when it comes to the Covid shot. These people seem to want a surgeon general who declares Covid was a hoax and bans vaccines altogether.
The far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, meanwhile, who seems to have become one of Trump's most influential albeit unofficial advisers, isn't happy with Means because she thinks she's unserious. Writing on Twitter/X, Loomer said Means 'PRAYS TO INANIMATE OBJECTS, COMMUNICATES WITH SPIRIT MEDIUMS, USES SHROOMS AS 'PLANT MEDICINE' AND TALKS TO TREES! SHE ALSO DOESN'T EVEN HAVE AN ACTIVE MEDICAL LICENSE.'
Loomer isn't the only one a little worried about Means's enthusiasm for psychedelic drugs including magic mushrooms – which the prospective surgeon general once suggested in a newsletter helped her find a romantic partner. Psilocybin, a psychedelic compound found in certain mushrooms, is currently listed as a schedule I drug, defined as a substance 'with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse'.
Means should probably be a little worried about what Loomer thinks, as Loomer may have played a part in ousting Trump's original pick for the position. That was Janette Nesheiwat, a former Fox News medical contributor and the sister-in-law of Mike Waltz, the former national security adviser. On X this month, Loomer called Nesheiwat 'a pro-Covid vaccine nepo appointee' who 'didn't go to medical school in the US'. (Nesheiwat has said that she got a degree from the University of Arkansas School of Medicine, but it would seem that she actually earned her medical degree from a school in Sint Maarten.)
Will Loomer topple Means before her confirmation (which hasn't been scheduled yet) as well? I don't know but I can tell you that if she does, it's unlikely that her successor will be any more qualified. The Trump administration, as we all know, has been waging war on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). If you're a (non-Trump-loving) woman or a minority, it doesn't seem to matter how many qualifications you have, you're automatically considered a 'DEI hire' and looked upon with suspicion. Many prominent people in the Trump administration, meanwhile, seem to be WTF hires. They are there because they're white, Trumpy and often in the family of someone influential (or they have been on Fox News). Whether we get Means or not, you can be sure that whoever is confirmed as the nation's top doctor will be completely unqualified to treat the US's Trump-induced ailments.
Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
25 minutes ago
- Telegraph
British firms being investigated for ‘helping Iran'
A number of British businesses are being investigated by the Government for potentially evading sanctions against Iran's nuclear programme, it has been reported. The Treasury has identified nine suspected breaches of Britain's rigid sanctions regime against the country. The sanctions are intended to discourage Iran's nuclear weapons programme and punish the country for violations of human rights and hostile actions against allies of the UK, such as Israel. The Office for Financial Sanctions Implementation, part of the Treasury, revealed in its annual review this week that it had opened the investigations. It did not name the companies or individuals under suspicion or investigation. The firms are understood to be under suspicion of avoiding sanctions to assist Iran with its nuclear weapons programme. A Government spokesman said: 'We are committed to ensuring that sanctions are robustly enforced, potential breaches investigated and appropriate action taken.' The OFSI does not comment on specific active cases. The Government currently sanctions around 200 organisations and individuals based in or linked to Iran because of alleged involvement in the country's nuclear weapons programme. Last year, it said it was prepared to trigger 'snapback' sanctions against Iran over nuclear deal breaches. David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, said he would trigger a new round of sanctions against the Islamic Republic to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons. The UK remains a participant of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, known as the Iran nuclear deal, and can therefore unilaterally force a return to sanctions if it considers that Iran has violated the terms of the deal. The nuclear deal was significantly weakened by the US withdrawal in 2018 under the first Donald Trump administration, although major signatories, including the UK, France and Germany, remain committed in theory. Last week, Mr Trump approved US strikes on some of Iran's most heavily fortified nuclear enrichment facilities. It followed a series of smaller strikes by Israel in the preceding days, launched by Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, after he claimed that Iran had enough highly enriched uranium to produce nine atomic bombs. Sir Keir Starmer has repeatedly said that Iran ' can never have a nuclear weapon ' but called for de-escalation in the war between Iran and Israel, which lasted for 12 days before a ceasefire was brokered. The Prime Minister is understood to have received an hour's notice from the White House before the US strikes on Iran took place. The British Government quickly made clear that it had played no role in the operation.
Daily Mail
40 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Boy, 6, battling cancer is seized by ICE outside Texas courthouse
A Honduran mother has sued ICE and the Trump administration after she and her cancer-stricken six-year-old son were arrested by agents outside a Los Angeles immigration court. The woman, who is not named in court documents, said they violated her family's rights by detaining them at a Texas facility, despite their lawful efforts to seek asylum in the U.S. In a scathing petition filed in San Antonio federal court, her lawyers argue that the arrest was unconstitutional and traumatic, especially for her young son who has undergone chemotherapy for acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The young boy urinated on himself and remained in wet clothes 'for hours' during the traumatic arrest, according to the documents. 'They're asylum seekers fleeing from violence, who had an appointment at the border, were paroled into the country and the government made an assessment that they didn't have to be detained,' said attorney Kate Gibson Kumar of the Texas Civil Rights Project. 'There should be some sort of protection for this family, which is doing everything right.' The lawsuit claims the mother and her kids were taken into custody without warning on May 29, immediately after a judge granted dismissal of their asylum case at the government's request. The woman had objected, telling the court, 'We wish to continue [with our cases],' according to legal filings. The family - already facing death threats in Honduras - had been living in California with relatives while attending court hearings, going to church, and enrolling the children in local public schools. But shortly after leaving the courtroom, all three were arrested in the hallway by ICE agents and taken to a nearby facility, where they were allegedly held for hours. Her son, who was due for a medical check-up on June 5, missed the appointment due to the arrest. According to court documents, all three 'cried in fear' during the ordeal. They were later flown to San Antonio and transferred to the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas - where they remain in detention. Kumar slammed the move as cruel and unnecessary. 'So often, you'll hear all the rhetoric in this country that immigrants should be doing it 'the right way,' and it's ironic in this case because we're in a situation where this family did it 'the right way' and they're being punished for it,' she told the Los Angeles Times. Kumar added that the government never gave the mother a chance to contest the detention before a neutral judge - violating her Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights. Federal officials pushed back, saying the case is unfolding lawfully. 'This family had chosen to appeal their case - which had already been thrown out by an immigration judge - and will remain in ICE custody until it is resolved,' said DHS assistant secretary for public affairs Tricia McLaughlin. As for the boy's cancer, McLaughlin noted that 'the minor child in question has not undergone chemotherapy in over a year, and has been seen regularly by medical personnel since arriving at the Dilley facility.' She also insisted that 'ICE ALWAYS prioritizes the health, safety, and well-being of all detainees in its care.' 'The implication that ICE would deny a child the medical care they need is flatly FALSE, and it is an insult to the men and women of federal law enforcement,' she said. But according to the lawsuit, the family was left in limbo - with the children crying each night and praying 'for God to take them out of the detention center.' The mother says her son went days without proper monitoring for his cancer. Her legal team is now asking a judge to block their deportation and to release them from detention, warning that returning to Honduras would place the family in grave danger.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Home discomforts send Trump rushing to project image of global patriarch
'Daddy's home.' So said a social media post from the White House, accompanied by a video featuring the song Hey Daddy (Daddy's Home) by Usher and images of Donald Trump at the Nato summit in The Hague. The US president's fundraising allies were quick to market $35 T-shirts with his image and the word after Mark Rutte, the Nato secretary general, referred to Trump's criticism of Israel and Iran over violations of a ceasefire by quipping: 'And then Daddy has to sometimes use strong language to get [them to] stop.' Yet even as Trump seeks to project an image of global patriarch, there are signs of trouble on the home front. His polling numbers are down. His party is struggling to pass his signature legislation. Millions of people have marched in the streets to protest against him. Critics say the president who claims to put America First is in fact putting America Last. Trump is not the first president to find the foreign policy domain, where as commander-in-chief he recently ordered strikes on nuclear sites in Iran, less restrictive than the domestic sphere, where a rambunctious Congress, robust judiciary and sceptical media are constant irritants. But rarely has the gap between symbolic posturing abroad and messy politicking at home been so pronounced. 'There's two presidencies,' said Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota. 'The one on the domestic front is gruesome and involves long-drawn-out and disappointing negotiations with Congress and that's exactly what Donald Trump is engaged in now. What emerges from Congress is not going to be as 'big' or 'beautiful' as he promised. 'Meanwhile you've got staggering photographs of bombs falling from the sky, Donald Trump's flamboyant description of what he's achieved in Iran and Europe. That's the kind of Hollywood performance that Donald Trump wants.' The president stunned the world last Saturday by announcing, on his Truth Social platform, that he had ordered more than 125 aircraft and 75 weapons – including 14 bunker-busting bombs – to hit three targets in Iran to prevent the country obtaining a nuclear weapon. He followed up with a White House speech, choreographed to project an image of power, in which he declared: 'Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.' That narrative has since been cast into doubt by a leaked intelligence report suggesting that the operation set back Iran's nuclear programme by only a few months. Still, Trump pivoted to the role of peacemaker, again using Truth Social to announce a ceasefire between Iran and Israel, prompting Republicans to gush that he should win the Nobel peace prize. Trump's barrage of speeches, interactions with reporters and social media posts about the Middle East were likened by some to a daily soap opera, dominating Americans' attention and distracting them from his one big beautiful bill, a budget plan that threatens to slash the social safety net that many of his own supporters depend on. Jacobs observed: 'This is a classic deception. He's like the carnival barker who's waving his hands to keep the attention of the audience even as he's hiding the part for the next trick. 'What's coming out of Congress is going to absolutely harm many of his voters. Politicians like to cover their tracks; there's no covering the tracks here. There will be known cuts to widely used popular programmes like the healthcare for Medicaid and there will be no doubt as to who's responsible. These are traceable, highly visible consequences of Donald Trump.' Now in the sixth month of his second presidency, Trump's domestic honeymoon is over. A poll of 1,006 likely voters nationwide by John Zogby Strategies on 24 and 25 June found the president's approval rating down three points to 45%. About 49% of voters approve of his handling of immigration while 47% disapprove but on the economy 43% approve and 54% disapprove. Asked if they expect Trump's presidency will make them financially better off or worse off, 40% said better and 50% said worse. Zogby commented: 'There is a lot of anxiety domestically, first and foremost on the economy. People are confused and insecure. The numbers are plunging.' Consumer confidence unexpectedly deteriorated in June, a sign of economic uncertainty because of Trump's sweeping tariffs. The anxiety reported by the Conference Board was across the political spectrum, with the steepest decline among Republicans. And the share of consumers viewing jobs as plentiful was the smallest since March 2021. Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic senator, argued in a floor speech this week that Trump had broken him promise to lower costs 'on day one'. She said: 'American families don't need another war – they need good jobs and lower prices, and that is what we should be focused on.' Sign up to This Week in Trumpland A deep dive into the policies, controversies and oddities surrounding the Trump administration after newsletter promotion Warren listed 10 ways in which the One Big Beautiful Bill Act would raise costs for families, from rent to groceries to prescription drug prices, and warned that it will take healthcare away from more than 16 million people. Republicans in the House of Representatives and Senate continue to haggle over the contents of the bill as a 4 July deadline looms. Neera Tanden, president and chief executive of the Center for American Progress and a former domestic policy adviser to President Joe Biden, told an audience on Thursday: 'This legislation is the greatest Robin Hood-in-reverse legislation that I have ever seen in my lifetime. It is cutting healthcare for working-class people and using those dollars to fund tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.' Meanwhile discontent is simmering over Trump's signature issue of immigration, even among some of his own voters. Videos of people being snatched off the streets or beaten by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents have provoked widespread revulsion. There have also been cases such as that of Ming Li Hui, a popular member of staff at a restaurant in rural Missouri who was arrested and jailed to await deportation. Her friend Vanessa Cowart told the New York Times: 'I voted for Donald Trump, and so did practically everyone here. But no one voted to deport moms. We were all under the impression we were just getting rid of the gangs, the people who came here in droves.' Meanwhile aggressive workplace raids are hurting hotels, restaurants, farms, construction firms and meatpacking companies, including in conservative states. The alarm recently got through to Trump, who admitted that some undocumented immigrants were actually 'very good, longtime workers' and ordered a temporary pause, only to then yield back to hardliners in his administration. Wendy Schiller, a political science professor at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, said: 'In a restaurant, if you lose your cooks, you can't serve people and you lose money. If you are in a factory where people have been swooped up by Ice, you have to do more work. 'It puts more of the burden on the same people who might have voted for Donald Trump – lower-income or middle-income factory workers or meat-processing people. They're feeling the effects of this immigration sweep in ways that the administration did not anticipate.' Trump's second term has been further marred by the tech billionaire Elon Musk leading a 'department of government efficiency', or Doge, that fired thousands of federal workers but fell far short of its cost-saving target before Musk left amid acrimony. The president's authoritarian attacks on cultural institutions, law firms, media organisations and universities fuelled 'No Kings' protests involving more than 5 million people in more than 2,100 cities and towns across the country on 14 June. In that context, it is perhaps not surprising that Trump should relish the global stage, where any world leader is just a phone call away and where he is now being feted as statesman and father figure. It has proven easier to drop bombs on Iran or pressure Nato to agree to a big increase in military spending than to tame Thomas Massie, a rebellious Kentucky Republican defying him over both Iran and the spending bill. Schiller added: 'It is true for every president, Republican or Democrat, that when things are going south domestically they turn to foreign affairs. Trump feels in some ways more powerful on the global stage than he does trying to get Congress to do what he wants. The House Republicans are giving him a hard time. The Senate Republicans are giving him a hard time. He's annoyed by this so then he goes, well, we're a global military power.'
