As he gears up for bruising midterm elections, President Trump is baffling supporters by bringing back a member of his original public health apparatus, whose nine-month COVID-19 vaccine development initiative paved the way for the Biden administration’s heavy-handed COVID mandates and jawboning of Big Tech to clamp down on true claims.
Former Deputy Surgeon General Erica Schwartz’s nomination for Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director is part of a broader revanchism of vaccine orthodoxy against the vaccine heterodoxy of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
He fired Trump’s first Senate-confirmed CDC director, Susan Monarez, less than a month into her tenure last summer for allegedly admitting she was “untrustworthy.” Monarez struggled to give straight answers on the harm-benefit profile of COVID vaccines, why every child on day one needs the full U.S. vaccine schedule and even her lawyers at a subsequent Senate hearing.
Schwartz is “normal and not an anti-vaccine lunatic,” infectious diseases researcher Neil Stone, a superfan of Trump’s Operation Warp Speed who calls himself “officially the 1st person to use [the] word Covid,” wrote of Schwartz on X. “Meaning she won’t last long under RFK Jr.”
Trump’s first surgeon general, Jerome Adams, who alternately told the public to “STOP BUYING MASKS” because they don’t stop the spread, then to wear masks “as a social cue,” said he’s “cautiously optimistic” about the nomination.
He “personally selected” Schwartz as his deputy and called her a “battle-tested leader with decades of distinguished public service. […] If allowed to follow the science without political interference, she’ll excel.”