← Bulwark Takes
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- [00:00]
Andrew Egger
Hi, this is Andrew Egger with the Bulwark. We got a little bit of a shakeup in the Trump appointments game yesterday. He pulled the former pick for surgeon general that he had been rolling with, former doctor who's a doctor, who's a FOX News contributor. He's going in a different direction. Kacey Means is Donald Trump's new pick to be the US Surgeon General. She's kind of an interesting character in a whole lot of ways. We're going to break it all down today. Talk about it. I'm joined by Jonathan Cohn, our top policy reporter and Will Sommer, our in house expert in all things right wing and wild. So thanks, guys. Let's talk a little bit about the background of this person, where she come from. Where did Donald Trump pick this woman up off the street to be potentially the next surgeon general of the United States? Jonathan?
- [00:50]
Jonathan Cohn
Yeah. So I mean, you look at her biography and it starts in a very traditional way for a surgeon general, right? So she goes to Stanford. She goes to Stanford Medical School, ends up in residency in Oregon for becoming a head and neck surgeon. And then somewhere during residency, she decides this isn't for her. And the story she tells is that she had this sort of epiphany doing surgery one day that the medical profession, the medical establishment, our whole health care system was very focused on treating people when they are sick and not at all focused on why they got sick and keeping them healthy. And so she kind of at that point there's like a turn off the sort of normal, you know, the standard road of kind of American medicine. She becomes, she turns into a sort of a, you know, you know, a writer, a thinker, entrepreneur, you know, an evangelical, an evangelist for healthy living and her ideas about it. She does a lot of work with her brother who is also they also went to Stanford, then actually ended up at Harvard Business School. And he is sort of, you know, through his own path and his own epiphany, the two of them end up doing a lot of work sort of coming up with this sort of, you know, ideas about what is wrong with American medicine and how to fix it. And it's, you know, all about, you know, good health that we mean as a country we're not focused on, you know, on diet, on exercise. And then she has got a whole, you know, theory worked out and there's a whole scientific explanation she gives or, you know, what she considers a scientific explanation. Some would question it. And she ends up on the radar screen of RFK and right wing and actually I think that's probably where Will probably can kind of pick up the story better than I can.
- [02:37]
Will Sommer
Yeah, sure. So Casey and Callie Means, her brother, they have this. This book that came out a few years ago called, I believe, Good Energy Bestseller. It's a lot of, like, get a lot more sunlight. We sort of started to enter maybe the world of people may be familiar with, like, Andrew Huberman, this kind of stuff. This is kind of like a softer, kind of more spiritual version of that. And then basically, she goes on Rogan. It becomes hugely popular based on that and some other. She goes on Tucker eventually. And then during RFK's presidential campaign, she kind of goes into the RFK orbit. And so that's where these kind of Casey and Callie means. I started hearing last year a lot of, like, people saying, Trump supporters saying that, you know, these are kind of like the vanguards of the Make America Healthy Again movement.
- [03:20]
Andrew Egger
Yeah, yeah. The business about the kind of epiphany right at the end of her kind of formal training, there is. So I personally had sort of an epiphany that pulled me out of potentially wanting to go into medicine. But it was in, like, 11th grade I realized I was kind of the idea of blood and wounds being around me kind of made me faint and unhappy. Didn't like the idea of it went in a different direction, which, in the end, I don't know. I guess I don't get to be the Surgeon General of the United States. So it's not. I guess you wouldn't really call it a sunk cost completely to have gone through all of that. But it is very late in the game. This. This whole. This whole wellness business. The. It's so fascinating to me, the people who are in this space, because at bottom, a lot of the things that she's recommending in this. In this Good Energy book and elsewhere just kind of boil down to pretty commonsensical good ideas, right? About. About, you know, living in the modern world, get more sunlight, get more sleep, drink more water, eat less processed foods, a lot of things like that, but it's bolted onto this. You know, a person might charitably say pseudoscientific. Maybe that's uncharitable. I don't know. A person might call it pseudoscientific, sort of holistic explanation for why all of these things are contributing to your metabolic health, the kind of core energies that are going through you and making you less at risk for different cancers and diabetes and all sorts of different things. In the way that she lays it out and then you also have to talk about the way that that whole infrastructure is connected to some increasingly sort of alarming stuff that's going on in the. In the RFK type orbit, where it's the same sort of wellness speak that gets deployed to talk about, you know, the supposed dangers of pediatric vaccines or the supposed dangers of, you know, chemicals in the jet fuel overhead, as will you've reported a lot about with rfk.
- [05:23]
Will Sommer
Well, and Casey Means is right there. Right there with you on the chemtrails.
- [05:27]
Andrew Egger
I didn't know that. Can you talk to me about that?
- [05:28]
Will Sommer
So, yeah, so let's talk about some of. Some of her beliefs. So, as you said, it starts with this very. Almost like, I don't know, like, we're going to Coachella, kind of like, kind of a chill vibe, kind of California organizing avocado toast. And as you mentioned, a lot of it is that, like metabolism and metabolic health. And, you know, I think the beans are very good at. They don't come off like raving lunatics. And perhaps they aren't, but it's a very acceptable kind of like a Whole Foods thing where they say, you know, well, doctors should tell people to eat well. Well, as some of even the means, as critics on the right have pointed out, there are a lot of doctors who are like, you need to eat more Lucky Charms and Doritos. Right. I mean, that's kind of already built in. But then when you get below the surface, she gets a lot of, like, a lot more like, back to nature. She's really against, like, damning rivers and lakes. You know, that kind of pops up a lot. She believes that all bodies should be composted. And so then we start getting, you know, speaking of compost, we're kind of getting the layers here. Right. As you said, vaccines. She's kind of like anti vax light. She's like, kind of skeptical of vaccines. And, you know, oh, maybe we have too many vaccines. So that's.
- [06:33]
Andrew Egger
The pediatric vaccination schedule is I think, the main thing that she's. She's pushing as well as some Covid. Covid. Vaccines. Skepticism. But the, but like the idea of.
- [06:41]
Will Sommer
Yeah, and I mean, in terms of the chemtrails. I mean, I saw she went on Kristen Cavallari, if people remember the O.C. or. Or not the O.C. excuse me, the hills, you know, Laguna Beach. She went on her show and Cruising Cavalieri says, like, what's up with all these chemtrails? And she said, well, you know, I don't know. There are Like a lot of weird lines in the old sky. So I mean, a lot of this stuff, she's kind of signaling to this Maha movement or excuse me, to kind of the further side, it's fringer, fringier side. But I think Casey Callie means kind of represent a more respectable such as it is version of that. And to be frank, that has infuriated a lot of anti vaccine people who see her and her brother is sort of diluting the force of anti vaccine stuff in pursuit of like let's get the wrong chemical additives out of potato chips, which they seem as sort of a pointless diversion.
- [07:30]
Andrew Egger
Right, right, right, yeah. Sort of an anti vaxxer in name only sort of situation. Squish a Maha squish in the view of some of these very far out there people. Let me back up just a little bit, Jonathan. This is a lot about Casey Means we're kind of talking about her in the orbit of rfk.
- [07:48]
Will Sommer
Actually.
- [07:48]
Andrew Egger
She and her brother were weirdly enough, reportedly the couple who introduced or at least kind of hooked up Trump and RFK as kind of campaign fellow travelers and buddies last year after the attempted assassination on Donald Trump. So they're kind of big players in the way that certain elements of the 2024 election went down. But just to back up a little bit more, can you just talk a little bit to us about what it actually means that she's being appointed or being nominated to serve as Surgeon General? I mean, it's a largely symbolic role. But what does the Surgeon General do? They. What are they kind of responsible for?
- [08:25]
Jonathan Cohn
Yeah, yeah. So I mean, actually Surgeon General is one of the oldest offices in the United States. I mean, actually traces all the way back to 1798, is originally started as sort of, you know, care for mariners in the Mariners service and evolved into a uniformed service. And the Surgeon General is in charge of this uniformed service of medical officers of the United States, technically. Now, a lot of that responsibility was stripped in modern times and as you say today, it's mostly not so much about. It's not really a line job where you have authority over people and programs. What the Surgeon General does have is a really important public place platform. And over the last few decades, they have used that platform to issue reports, you know, public speaking, public writing. It's actually been fairly influential. You know, it was a Surgeon General's report back in the 1960s that smoking was, you know, hazardous to your health and led to the famous, you know, the warning label we still have on, you know, cigarette packs in the 1980s. A report that the Surgeon General did on AIDS was really a pivotal moment in shaping public perceptions about HIV and AIDS at a time when it was sort of, you know, being sort of, you know, sort of cordoned off as a sort of gay disease. And there was a lot of discrimination involved in this. CF C. Edward. C. C. Edward. God, it's been a while. Everett, I think, was. C. Everett Koop was. The surgeon general issued this report. It was a really big moment. More recently, we've had a surgeon general do a report on gun violence, on maternal health, on mental health and addiction. And these reports really can really be. Play a big role in shaping the public perceptions, shaping the political dialogue, and lead to real action. You know, looking back, that report on smoking, I mean, most people, if you look back, the sort of decline in smoking in America, it's considered one of the great public health victories of the modern era. And that report was a really big part of it. So, you know, here we have, you know, means, as surgeon general would be in a position to issue reports, make, you know, and really kind of focus on, you know, you know, bringing new issues to light. And the funny thing is, you know, when you listen to, like, you know, listen to them on Rogan, you know, as Will was just talking about, you know, a lot of what they say about the healthcare system, you know, it's sort of not enough emphasis on keeping people healthy. The extent to which the pharmaceutical industry has too much influence on. There's, you know, there's a lot of people who agree with that. Yeah, you know, I would agree with a lot of that. And you. You can imagine a world where she, in that position could do some good, if that's what you know. But then again, a lot of what she does, for reasons Will was just explaining really, like, you know, a lot of, you know, your, you know, the scientific establishment looks and says, well, wait a minute, this is. What are you talking about here? And so that is the question. How would she use that platform?
- [11:18]
Andrew Egger
Yeah, it really is striking the degree to which we're in a system now where the main institutional critique of things like Big Pharma, if you're the kind of person who thinks Big Pharma has too much power, thinks there's too much processed food going into American gullets, think people don't exercise enough, think people don't get enough natural light, the main power center for putting any of that stuff into action, seems to right now in America be this MAHA movement that's allied with the current president, allied with the current Secretary of Health and Human Services and which also has a complete allergy to doing any kind of crank policing in its ranks at all. Right? I mean, you can see that and this is kind of the main question with Casey Means is like, some of these people far out to the right are like, wow, well, is she, is she, does she really care about chemtrails? Does she really have concerns about pediatric vaccinations? Or is she just staying that stuff to get in good with us? And meanwhile, how insane is it to live in a world where, where the nominee for Surgeon General of the United States would possibly be incentivized to get in good with those particular people? I mean, it's, we're just, we're just so upside down in terms of the political incentives here. Jonathan, I wanted to ask you as well, just about what, what you see as, I mean, again, this is, Trump had a surgeon general pick before who was plenty right wing, but kind of more of the, certainly not this exact same like Maha flavor. What do you make of, of, of kind of the tea leaves of Trump now, you know, making this shift and I guess giving this extra vote of confidence, at least that's the way I read it to, to Robert F. Kennedy.
- [13:03]
Jonathan Cohn
Jr. Yeah, I mean, you know, I don't know. I continue to still puzzle over this sort of RFK Trump relationship. I mean, you know, my assumption with Trump is that everything is transactional. And so, you know, do I, you know, do we think Donald Trump has spent a lot of time thinking about wellness and health or spends a lot of time thinking about it now? I mean, this is Mr. Mr. Big Mac, right? I mean, you know, I think, you know, RFK was useful to him, has been useful to him, continues to be useful to him. And so he's happy, you know, he doesn't care either way, so he's happy to give RFK kind of free reign over at, you know, Department of Health and Human Services. And I do think there's some overlap there. You know, the RFK agenda, you can kind of draw a Venn diagram, right, of the sort of RFK agenda. You know, Trump's desire to kind of beat up on the medical establishment he still is angry with from COVID and, you know, and, you know, and then this sort of, you know, this sort of other parts of the right wing universe that just want, you know, see the sort of, you know, the woke conspiracy in government and academia. You kind of draw those three circles. It's a pretty big Venn diagram. And HHS is right in the middle of it. So I mean, I think, you know, that's what's happening here. And every appointee, you know, I remember when he first appointed rfk, I was like, well, let's see who the deputies are, who are the. How else did the rest of the department get filled out? And we've seen appointee after appointee at fda, at NIH are people who share, you know, all fit within those three, you know, in that Venn diagram, in that middle ground. And so that's, that's where they're going. So to me, means is part of that, you know, in terms of the, the exact where in that universe that I don't know. Again, I defer to will on that because that, yeah, I don't know.
- [14:46]
Will Sommer
So this is kind of the other beat here. So, so this happened, you know, now what, Wednesday night, that, that, this, this, this original Surgeon General nominee got booted out. And a lot of that is, I think, being attributed to her being polaxed by Laura Loomer, the right wing activist, right. Who has this kind of little side business going on where she highlights what are no longer sort of acceptable MAGA opinions people have had in the past on her Twitter account. And then I think makes them sort of toxic within Trump world. So she says, well, you know, this doctor, she thought people should wear masks at one point during COVID And so suddenly they go, oh, no. So that in part helped push the Surgeon General nominee out. So you might think she's thrilled with Casey Means, not so. Laura Loomer now has been on the attack against Casey Means, saying she can't really practice as a doctor right now. She changed her name at one point. I looked into this. It seems relatively mild. She dropped Paula as her first name. I don't blame her. You know, so, so there's that. But maybe more interesting, Nicole Shanahan, RFK's running mate in the presidential race, she ripped into RFK last night and said, you know, I don't know, is RFK lying to me the whole time? I don't like this lady. What's going on here? You know, and suggested maybe RFK is being blackmailed by someone, which kind of plays into this idea that RFK is being blackmailed by Israel. Popular conspiracy theory these days. And so what is going on here? Well, I think, I don't know what Laura Loomer is up to. I think she's up to something. But the, in the case of Nicole Shanahan, this is someone who is very much an anti vax person. She Got into this stuff because I believe one of her relatives has autism. That's how she got into it. So as I mentioned, you know, the means are seen as kind of squishes as like posers in the anti vax space. I think that's what's going on here.
- [16:28]
Andrew Egger
Yeah. And again, like, can I just belabor this point of how shocking and just really remarkable it is to just imagine that anybody would. That you're not a real anti vax crank, but you have to pretend that you're a real anti vax crank in order to shore up support and get in good with the current administration or with the Maha movement or whatever. It's just so. It's just so amazing and remarkable and appalling to think about in those terms. Not to over editorialize over the top of you guys, but yeah, I guess we can probably leave it at that, right? Anything else? What'd we miss? What'd we miss? I guess we got through the whole video without forgetting that Casey is the sister and Callie is the brother, which has been a hard thing for me forever.
- [17:12]
Will Sommer
I'm with you. I mix them up in my head.
- [17:15]
Jonathan Cohn
Same should mention she had a license in Oregon, according to public records, but it's now inactive. Not, you know, it wasn't. Doesn't suspended or anything. Just is inactive because she, you know, and. But it seems to be. I mean, I think people are still doing the background historical research on this. This just happened last night. But she would be the first Surgeon General in modern times certainly to not have an active license to practice medicine. And, you know, I imagine she and her supporters would say, yes, that's the whole point. We need to totally shake up, you know, the medical establishment. I think there are a lot of other people who would kind of say, wait a minute, this must be, you know, basically the most important visible doctor in America. And it's someone who can't practice medicine. So, you know, ponder that.
- [18:01]
Andrew Egger
Do not permit the incoming Surgeon General to perform surgery on you. Okay, thanks guys. This was fun. We'll keep following this. Obviously, who knows? Lots of twists and turns ahead in the confirmation of the incoming potentially Surgeon General. Thanks to everybody out there for watching. Hope you subscribe. Hope you head to the bulwark.com and read our stuff. Thanks and we'll see you next time.