MAHA Wellness Influencer Shows Off How Well She Can Dodge Questions During Surgeon General Hearing
Casey Means answered questions about the abortion pill, birth control, and vaccines out of both sides of her mouth.
Politics
Barely 12 hours after the president wasted nearly two hours of America’s time with the thing that was supposed to be the State of the Union speech on Tuesday night, the Senate on Wednesday morning spent another two and a half hours grilling wellness influencer Casey Means on why she’s qualified to be the nation’s next surgeon general. Given how she spent the better part of the hearing tap-dancing around her opinions on telehealth abortion and birth control, I’d say she’s already a Trump administration natural!
Trump initially announced Means’ nomination in May on Truth Social, saying she has “impeccable ‘MAHA’ credentials,” and that she was picked because RFK Jr liked her. Speaking to reporters in July, he said, “Bobby thought she was fantastic…I don’t know her.” Red flag, much?
“Do you believe that the abortion pill mifepristone is safe and should be prescribed without an in-person visit with a physician?” Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) asked. “I think that every medication has risks and benefits,” Means replied. “I think that all patients need to have a thorough conversation with their doctor and have true informed consent before taking any medication.”
“Should there be an in-person visit?” Cassidy reiterated.
“The question of whether it should be an in-person visit is out of the purview of the surgeon general’s office,” replied Means, adding, “I do believe that every patient needs to have a very thorough conversation with their doctor before taking any medication.”
Cassidy’s question stems from the GOP’s obsession with getting the FDA to re-review the abortion pill, mifepristone, in hopes that the agency will revoke its 2023 guidance allowing the medication to be prescribed via teleheath—or, in other words, fulfill their ill-masked attempt to ban medication abortion.
Though mifepristone has been deemed safe by science, reality, hundreds of studies, and the FDA for more than a decade, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) spent most of 2025 amplifying a bogus far-right study claiming the medication has “adverse effects.” FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary ultimately gave in to Hawley in November and said he’d order a review—but it’s since been reported that he’s attempting to stall it until after the midterms.
Means clearly got the same memo.
“Do you believe that birth control is safe, should be widely accessible, including perhaps without a prescription?” Cassidy asked next. “I absolutely think that oral contraception should be widely accessible, just as I said with mifepristone,” Means replied. “I believe that especially when it comes to oral contraceptives, we need to have patients having a conversation with their doctor about risks and benefits.” Welp. There goes Cassidy’s confirmation vote, I imagine.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), like most of the Dems, took her allotted time to call Means out for her past comments, like when she said that the “larger issue” of birth control is that it’s a “disrespect of life” on the Tucker Carlson Show in August 2024. “We have lost respect for life,” she said, while comparing birth control pills to pesticides, “which again gets to the spiritual crisis.” Definitely sounds like a MAHA leader to me. (Derogatory.)
“You called birth control pills a disrespect of life and said Americans use birth control pills like candy,” said Murray. “You also claimed—contrary to established science—that hormonal birth control has horrifying health risks for women…Help me understand. Should women trust the FDA, which approved all 18 methods of birth control after a very rigorous look at the evidence, or should they trust your statement?”
“I absolutely believe medication should be accessible to all women,” replied Means, adding that her comments were taken out of context. The context being, of course, being more pronatalist fodder.
Millions of moms struggle with depression during their pregnancy.
America deserves a Surgeon General who can state plainly that SSRIs are SAFE for the majority of pregnant women.
We don’t need more junk science charlatans. I’m voting NO on Casey Means’ confirmation.
— Senator Patty Murray (@murray.senate.gov) February 25, 2026 at 1:10 PM
Though Means calls herself a doctor and graduated from the Stanford University School of Medicine in 2014, she dropped out of her residency in 2018 and does not have an active medical license. So, in other words, she’s pretty much exactly what you’d expect a Trump administration surgeon general to be: unqualified, terrible at answering questions straight, and, to use Murray’s words, is “contrary to established science.”
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