RFK Jumps To Defense Of New Trump Nominee That Surprisingly Angered MAHA Supporters

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. leapt to the defense of President Donald Trump’s new Surgeon General pick Dr. Casey Means on Thursday after she faced mounting scrutiny from all sides of the political spectrum.

Means, who Trump tapped Wednesday after pulling his previous surgeon general nomination, is a Stanford Medical School-educated doctor and sibling of fierce Kennedy ally Calley Means.

But Means is facing a swell of scrutiny for, among other things, leaving her medical residency early.

Means left her residency at Oregon Health & Science University in her fifth year, becoming disillusioned with the medical system’s reflexive impulse to medicate, she explained in the book she co-wrote with Calley Means, “Good Energy.”

“It was increasingly becoming clear to me that although I was surrounded by practitioners who got into medicine to help patients, the reality is that every institution that impacts health – from medical schools to insurance companies to hospitals to pharma companies – makes money on ‘managing’ disease, not curing patients,” she wrote.

Despite her openness, critics latched on to her early departure and the fact that her medical license is currently inactive.

“Trump picks conspiracy theorist ‘wellness influencer’ Casey Means with no medical license to replace Fox contributor as Surgeon General,” leftwing outlet The Independent wrote.

“Casey Means is a grifter who dropped out of ENT residency & start a company selling glucose monitors & health all to non-diabetics,” Andrea Love, a pro-Kamala Harris immunologist and microbiologist with a large following wrote on X.

“She doesn’t know basic science, yet claims she’s a metabolism expert. Incomplete ENT residency ≠ expert. Of course she’s up for Surgeon General,” Love concluded.

Casey Means is a grifter who dropped out of ENT residency & start a company selling glucose monitors & health all to non-diabetics.

She doesn’t know basic science, yet claims she’s a metabolism expert.

Incomplete ENT residency ≠ expert.

Of course she’s up for Surgeon General.

— Andrea C. Love, PhD (@dr_andrealove) May 7, 2025

Kennedy Jr., however, argued that it was precisely Means’s distance from the system that made her the perfect candidate to become the next Surgeon General.

“The attacks that Casey is unqualified because she left the medical system completely miss the point of what we are trying to accomplish with MAHA,” he wrote Thursday in an X post.

“Casey is the perfect choice for Surgeon General precisely because she left the traditional medical system–not in spite of it. Her leadership has inspired many doctors to reform the system and forge a new path away from sick care, which fills corporate coffers, and toward health care, which enriches all of us.”

The absurd attacks on Casey Means reveal just how far off course our healthcare conversations have veered, and how badly entrenched interests–including Big Food and its industry-funded social media gurus–are terrified of change.

Casey has excelled in every endeavor she has…

— Secretary Kennedy (@SecKennedy) May 8, 2025

While Kennedy’s defense addressed attacks on Means’s credentials, he did not mention criticisms posed by members of his own Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement. (RELATED: Seed Oil Lobbyist Gets Key Trump Admin Position, Putting MAHA To Early Test)

Many of the most popular social media personalities who once wholly embraced the MAHA movement came down hard on Means’s nomination, accusing her of being a grifter, a CIA plant and more.

“Casey Means as Surgeon General is some BULLSH*T. She didn’t fight alongside us during Covid, she knows nothing about autism, she was parachuted into the medical freedom movement to steer the conversation away from vaccines, likely CIA,” Toby Rogers, a Brownstone Institute fellow who focuses on regulatory capture and corruption in the pharmaceutical industry, claimed.

Casey Means as Surgeon General is some BULLSH*T. She didn’t fight alongside us during Covid, she knows nothing about autism, she was parachuted into the medical freedom movement to steer the conversation away from vaccines, likely CIA. https://t.co/BPL6jUP6Gw

— Toby Rogers (@uTobian) May 7, 2025

Kennedy Jr.’s own running mate, billionaire Nicole Shanahan, likened both Casey and Calley Means to “Manchurian assets” and claimed that Kennedy Jr. broke a promise to her that neither would be nominated for administration roles.

“I was promised that if I supported RFK Jr. in his Senate confirmation that neither of these siblings would be working under HHS or in an appointment (and that people much more qualified would be),” Shanahan tweeted Wednesday.

“I don’t know if RFK very clearly lied to me, or what is going on. It has been clear in recent conversations that he is reporting to someone regularly who is controlling his decisions (and it isn’t President Trump). With regards to the siblings, there is something very artificial and aggressive about them, almost like they were bred and raised Manchurian assets,” she claimed.

Yes, it’s very strange. Doesn’t make any sense. I was promised that if I supported RFK Jr. in his Senate confirmation that neither of these siblings would be working under HHS or in an appointment (and that people much more qualified would be). I don’t know if RFK very clearly… https://t.co/KDb5O5MvAM

— Nicole Shanahan (@NicoleShanahan) May 8, 2025

The Daily Caller reached out to Calley Means and Nicole Shanahan for comment but did not receive a response by time of publication.

When asked if Shanahan’s claims were true, HHS referred the Daily Caller to Secretary Kennedy’s statement.