The Trump administration is racing to fill a widening leadership vacuum within the US Department of Health and Human Services, amid months of upheaval that have shaken Americans’ trust and stoked GOP fears of a backlash at the ballot box in November.
Senior health officials plan to settle on a new nominee to run the Food and Drug Administration within the next few weeks, in hopes of rapidly stabilizing an agency whose prior leader had alienated several elements of President Donald Trump’s political coalition, a senior administration official told CNN.
They are also plotting a broader shakeup of senior FDA staff meant to reset the agency’s strained relationship with its vast workforce and ease deepening concerns across the health care industry, two senior officials said.
And as it works to contain the hantavirus outbreak, the White House is also pushing for the quick confirmation of more conventional picks to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and serve as surgeon general, after failing repeatedly to advance candidates closely aligned with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement.
“It needs a lot of sorting out,” GOP pollster Whit Ayres said of the turmoil across HHS. “It’s not exactly a well-oiled machine.”
