Trump nominates Erica Schwartz to lead CDC as Senate confirmation fight opens over agency direction

President Donald Trump on Thursday nominated former deputy surgeon general Erica Schwartz to serve as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, ending months of uncertainty over who would take formal control of one of Washington's most politically contested health agencies. The nomination gives the administration a permanent candidate after a long stretch of acting or short-lived leadership arrangements, but it does not resolve the larger argument over what the CDC is supposed to become under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.Trump nominates Erica Schwartz, former deputy surgeon general, to serve as CDC directorapnews.com·SecondaryA sign with the CDC logo is displayed at the entrance to the agency’s headquarters in Atlanta on March 2, 2025. (Miguel Martinez/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, File) WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday nominated Erica Schwartz, a former deputy surgeon general, to be the next director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In a social media post, Trump described Schwartz as “incredibly talented” and said, “She is a STAR!

The immediate fact pattern is straightforward. Schwartz, who served in the first Trump administration as deputy surgeon general and spent more than two decades in uniform, now faces Senate confirmation before she can take over the Atlanta-based agency. Trump paired her nomination with additional CDC leadership moves on Thursday, including the selection of Sean Slovenski as deputy director and chief operating officer and Jennifer Shuford as deputy director and chief medical officer.Trump nominates Erica Schwartz, former deputy surgeon general, to serve as CDC directorapnews.com·SecondaryA sign with the CDC logo is displayed at the entrance to the agency’s headquarters in Atlanta on March 2, 2025. (Miguel Martinez/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, File) WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday nominated Erica Schwartz, a former deputy surgeon general, to be the next director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In a social media post, Trump described Schwartz as “incredibly talented” and said, “She is a STAR! That staffing package suggests the White House wants to present the move not as a one-off personnel fix, but as a broader reset after a visibly unstable year.Trump nominates Erica Schwartz, former deputy surgeon general, to serve as CDC directorapnews.com·SecondaryA sign with the CDC logo is displayed at the entrance to the agency’s headquarters in Atlanta on March 2, 2025. (Miguel Martinez/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, File) WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday nominated Erica Schwartz, a former deputy surgeon general, to be the next director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In a social media post, Trump described Schwartz as “incredibly talented” and said, “She is a STAR!

That instability has become part of the story in its own right. The CDC has cycled through temporary leaders since Trump returned to office, and the legal clock on acting-service limits has already become a practical constraint. CNBC reported that National Institutes of Health director Jay Bhattacharya had been serving as acting CDC director until that title expired last month under the federal Vacancies Act, which caps how long an acting official may serve in place of a Senate-confirmed officer. AP, meanwhile, described a revolving-door arrangement in which short-term oversight passed among Washington-based HHS officials after a series of failed or brief leadership stints. The message to senators is clear: the administration can argue that the agency needs a confirmed leader simply to function with less internal drift.Trump nominates Erica Schwartz, former deputy surgeon general, to serve as CDC directorapnews.com·SecondaryA sign with the CDC logo is displayed at the entrance to the agency’s headquarters in Atlanta on March 2, 2025. (Miguel Martinez/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, File) WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday nominated Erica Schwartz, a former deputy surgeon general, to be the next director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In a social media post, Trump described Schwartz as “incredibly talented” and said, “She is a STAR!

But the politics are more complicated than a routine nomination. The administration's first attempt to install a CDC chief during Trump's second term collapsed when former congressman David Weldon never even reached a completed confirmation hearing in March 2025 because support in the Senate appeared too thin. The White House then turned to Susan Monarez, who won confirmation but lasted less than a month before being removed because, according to administration officials cited by AP, she was not sufficiently aligned with the administration's agenda. CNBC added a more specific version of that tension, reporting that Monarez later testified she had been fired after refusing Kennedy's demands to approve vaccine recommendations she believed lacked scientific support. Taken together, those episodes tell senators that the job on offer is not merely administrative. It sits at the fault line between scientific process and political control.Trump nominates Erica Schwartz, former deputy surgeon general, to serve as CDC directorapnews.com·SecondaryA sign with the CDC logo is displayed at the entrance to the agency’s headquarters in Atlanta on March 2, 2025. (Miguel Martinez/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, File) WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday nominated Erica Schwartz, a former deputy surgeon general, to be the next director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In a social media post, Trump described Schwartz as “incredibly talented” and said, “She is a STAR!

Schwartz's background gives both sides material to work with. Supporters can point to her service record, her role in the first Trump administration, and her participation in the federal response to the Covid-19 pandemic as evidence that she is experienced enough to steady an agency that has suffered from leadership turnover and falling morale. The White House can also argue that a nominee with prior service inside the broader public-health system may have a better chance of navigating the bureaucracy than a more overtly ideological outsider. For Republicans who want the CDC to operate more efficiently without openly repudiating public health as a function of government, Schwartz offers a credentialed vehicle for that argument.Trump nominates Erica Schwartz, former deputy surgeon general, to serve as CDC directorapnews.com·SecondaryA sign with the CDC logo is displayed at the entrance to the agency’s headquarters in Atlanta on March 2, 2025. (Miguel Martinez/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, File) WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday nominated Erica Schwartz, a former deputy surgeon general, to be the next director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In a social media post, Trump described Schwartz as “incredibly talented” and said, “She is a STAR!

Skeptics, however, have reasons to be cautious. AP said several senior CDC scientific leaders resigned after Monarez's ouster because they no longer believed the agency's director would be able to shield scientific research and health recommendations from political interference. CNBC reported that the agency has been dealing with staff turnover, morale problems, and controversy surrounding changes to vaccine policy under Kennedy's tenure. A federal judge recently blocked efforts by a key vaccine advisory panel to rewrite parts of the U.S. childhood immunization schedule, including a push to reduce the number of recommended childhood shots from 17 to 11. Critics will read Schwartz's nomination through that recent history and ask a blunt question: is she being chosen to restore institutional credibility, or to provide a more disciplined face for an agency that remains under heavy political direction?Trump nominates Erica Schwartz, former deputy surgeon general, to serve as CDC directorapnews.com·SecondaryA sign with the CDC logo is displayed at the entrance to the agency’s headquarters in Atlanta on March 2, 2025. (Miguel Martinez/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, File) WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday nominated Erica Schwartz, a former deputy surgeon general, to be the next director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In a social media post, Trump described Schwartz as “incredibly talented” and said, “She is a STAR!

That is where Kennedy's role becomes central. On paper, the CDC director runs an agency charged with protecting Americans from preventable health threats. In practice, the job now sits beneath a health secretary who has made vaccine policy, agency hierarchy and public trust part of a wider political fight. During a House Appropriations Committee hearing on Thursday, Kennedy described the incoming CDC leadership team as extraordinary and said it could put the agency back on track. His allies will likely frame Schwartz's nomination as evidence that the administration is moving from improvisation to structure. Opponents will say the real issue is not whether the team is organized, but whether it will preserve the boundary between scientific review and ideological pressure.Trump nominates Erica Schwartz, former deputy surgeon general, to serve as CDC directorapnews.com·SecondaryA sign with the CDC logo is displayed at the entrance to the agency’s headquarters in Atlanta on March 2, 2025. (Miguel Martinez/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, File) WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday nominated Erica Schwartz, a former deputy surgeon general, to be the next director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In a social media post, Trump described Schwartz as “incredibly talented” and said, “She is a STAR!

There is also a wider public-trust problem that no personnel move alone can solve. CNBC cited a February KFF poll showing that trust in federal health agencies has fallen during Kennedy's tenure, and that the decline has appeared across the political spectrum. For conservatives suspicious of bureaucratic overreach during the pandemic, that distrust reflects years of elite credibility loss and heavy-handed messaging from public-health authorities. For liberals and many institutional public-health voices, the newer concern is almost the mirror image: that the administration is stripping professional guardrails from agencies that still matter in outbreaks, vaccine policy and emergency response. Schwartz will inherit both critiques at once, which means she will be judged not simply on what she says, but on whether agency process looks more stable a few months from now.Trump nominates Erica Schwartz, former deputy surgeon general, to serve as CDC directorapnews.com·SecondaryA sign with the CDC logo is displayed at the entrance to the agency’s headquarters in Atlanta on March 2, 2025. (Miguel Martinez/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, File) WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday nominated Erica Schwartz, a former deputy surgeon general, to be the next director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In a social media post, Trump described Schwartz as “incredibly talented” and said, “She is a STAR!

The nomination matters politically because it gives Senate Republicans another test of how closely they intend to align with Kennedy's project. If the confirmation process becomes contentious, senators will likely drill into Schwartz's independence, her views on vaccine recommendations, her willingness to defend CDC scientists, and her tolerance for White House intervention in technical guidance. Democrats, who have already made leadership turmoil at federal health agencies a line of attack, are likely to use the hearing to argue that the administration has treated the CDC less as a scientific institution than as a battleground for ideological restructuring. Republicans, by contrast, can be expected to counter that the agency needs accountability, a clear command chain and a break from what they see as the failures of the old expert class.Trump nominates Erica Schwartz, former deputy surgeon general, to serve as CDC directorapnews.com·SecondaryA sign with the CDC logo is displayed at the entrance to the agency’s headquarters in Atlanta on March 2, 2025. (Miguel Martinez/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, File) WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday nominated Erica Schwartz, a former deputy surgeon general, to be the next director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In a social media post, Trump described Schwartz as “incredibly talented” and said, “She is a STAR!

The practical question is what happens next if Schwartz is confirmed. The administration could use a successful confirmation to argue that the turbulence phase is over and that the CDC can finally move into a more durable operating posture. But the agency's recent history suggests personnel will not be enough. The Senate process, the unresolved fight over vaccine recommendations, and the broader conflict between institutional autonomy and elected control are all still alive. In that sense, Schwartz's nomination is less the end of the CDC leadership story than the start of a more consequential chapter. The White House has now put a name and a résumé on its preferred direction. The confirmation hearing will show whether Washington believes that direction is stability, political consolidation, or some uneasy combination of the two.Trump nominates Erica Schwartz, former deputy surgeon general, to serve as CDC directorapnews.com·SecondaryA sign with the CDC logo is displayed at the entrance to the agency’s headquarters in Atlanta on March 2, 2025. (Miguel Martinez/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, File) WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday nominated Erica Schwartz, a former deputy surgeon general, to be the next director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In a social media post, Trump described Schwartz as “incredibly talented” and said, “She is a STAR!