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 with the matter and a spokesperson for the HELP Committee.
Means was expected to face tough questioning from Democrats on the Senate health committee over her ties to a wellness company she co-founded and her promotion of supplements online and on podcasts, according to people familiar with her approach and a letter to Means from a Democrat on the committee.
Means, a healthcare 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,” vowed in ethics filings to resign from the company Levels Health, Inc. and stop promoting wellness products while serving as a general surgeon.
But Democrats on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee are likely to focus on those revenue sources in their planned 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 divestment, your recent financial ties to several wellness companies may reasonably lead the public to question whether you are distorting the health advice of the Office of the Surgeon General to benefit your former clients.”
“If Means refuses to recuse herself from making government decisions that could help her former clients, how can we be sure that as Surgeon General she will put the health of Americans above special interests?” Warren wrote in a statement to ABC News.
Wellness influencer Dr. Casey Means, left, and journalist Megyn Kelly attend a confirmation hearing for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Secretary of Health and Human Services, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 29, 2025.
Ben Curtis/AP
Warren is not part of the HELP Committee and will not attend Thursday’s hearing.
Kim, a freshman senator who serves on the committee, said in a statement that Americans “deserve” to know that the best doctor in the country has their health and well-being in mind first, not his personal financial gains.
“I’m concerned about those types of people when it comes to making decisions and talking to the American people about how best to inform the American people about how to stay healthy,” Kim told ABC News before leaving the Capitol on Wednesday.
Means reacted defensively to questions about his potential conflicts of interest at a meeting Monday with staff members of the Democratic HELP Committee, multiple sources with knowledge of the meeting told ABC News.
At one point, according to three sources, Means mentioned former President Joe Biden’s surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, and highlighted the hundreds of thousands of dollars he had earned during the pandemic as a consultant for Carnival Cruise Line before being nominated for the position in 2021.
Means, according to people familiar with the exchange, seemed frustrated by what she saw as Democrats’ unwillingness to challenge Murthy in 2021 with the same zeal with which staff at Monday’s meeting questioned their own financial conflicts.
No member of the HELP Committee, Democrat or Republican, mentioned Murthy’s coronavirus-related query at his 2021 confirmation hearing, according to a publicly available transcript.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., told ABC News on Wednesday that her staff had told her Means had an “unwillingness to answer staff questions” at Monday’s meeting.
A person familiar with Baldwin’s thinking later told ABC News that the senator was “deeply concerned that Casey Means prioritizes her politics, President Trump’s wishes and her own financial interests over the health of Americans and the consensus of the scientific community.”
Emily Hilliard, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services, disputed the characterization of Monday’s meeting between media staffers and Democrats.
“Dr. Means met with committee staff in good faith, when she was 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 openly engage with senators from both parties as part of the confirmation process,” he added, saying Means “is focused on preparing for her confirmation hearing and promoting the administration’s public health priorities, not political theater.”
Meanwhile, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., a physician and chairman of the HELP Committee, said he expects a productive hearing Thursday.
“[Senator Cassidy] “She looks forward to discussing with Dr. Means how she will achieve President Trump’s mission to provide radical transparency and restore trust in our healthcare institutions,” a spokesperson for Cassidy told ABC News on Wednesday.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, applauded Means’ medical knowledge. “I think she’ll give excellent advice; that’s what she does, give advice to the president,” Tuberville told ABC News.
“We have a lot of problems with our food and our vaccines and everything in terms of health care is going to hell, and [we’re] I’m just looking for guidance from someone who has 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 Tuberville in praising Means. He said he had a positive meeting with Means earlier this week.
“We had a very good conversation,” Hickenlooper told ABC News, adding, “She’s an interesting person with an interesting background. I look forward to hearing what she says.”
