Trump picks Dr Oz to lead Medicare and Medicaid
Donald Trump has chosen TV host Dr Oz to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
Celebrity heart surgeon Dr Mehmet Oz rose to prominence working on Oprah Winfrey’s leading daytime television show before getting his own long-running series.
But how has he gone from TV personality to Donald Trump’s choice for overseeing a massive government agency?
The 64-year-old, who started out as Professor of Surgery at Columbia University, became a household name during 13 seasons of The Dr Oz Show, which ran from 2009 to 2022.
Dr Oz during a TV appearance in 2012. Pic: AP
He was popular, though his promotion of alternative medicine, faith healing and various paranormal beliefs earned him criticism from a number of medical publications and physicians.
The critics accused him of blurring the lines between medical advice and advertising, failing to make clear to his audience just how closely he worked with the companies he pitched.
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Despite the controversy, Dr Oz’s show was a hit and his net worth sat between $100m (£79m) and $315m (£249m) in 2022, according to a federal financial disclosure he filed that year.
Beyond being an Emmy-winning TV show host, he is also an author of New York Times bestsellers, radio talk show host, founder of a national nonprofit to educate teens about healthy habits, and self-styled ambassador for wellness.
He was also a regular Fox News commentator, and a champion of unproven treatments for COVID including hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial drug whose use against the disease was also backed by Trump.
Dr Oz holding his Emmy for outstanding talk show host in 2016. Pic: Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP
He became a fierce critic of Joe Biden’s government during the COVID pandemic, challenging its policies on social media.
Moving into politics
Dr Oz played a lesser part in the first Trump administration from 2016, when he was appointed to the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition.
But it was in 2022, after his show concluded, when Dr Oz really transitioned into politics by running for US Senate as a Republican in Pennsylvania.
The campaign leaned heavily into his celebrity status, with his campaign logo almost identical to his TV show logo.
Mehmet Oz campaigning for Senate in 2022. Pic: AP
During his campaign rallies, he would talk up his “number one health show in the world,” give the odd piece of medical advice to supporters and spend a lengthy amount of time signing autographs and posing for photos.
Following a court battle that went all the way to the US Supreme Court, Dr Oz narrowly won the primary over Dave McCormick by 951 votes, becoming the Republican candidate, but lost to Democrat John Fetterman in the general election.
His relationship with Trump
Donald Trump stands behind Dr Oz during rally in 2022. Pic: Reuters
The surgeon has had a long, personal relationship with the president-elect spanning back to the early 2000s.
He said in an interview during his Senate campaign that the pair first met in 2004 or 2005, when Dr Oz asked Mr Trump to use his golf course for an event for his children’s charity.
Mr Trump agreed and, after that, they saw each other intermittently at social events before Dr Oz interviewed him about his health during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Mr Trump appeared on his show, where he also said his wife Melania was “a big fan” of the doctor.
The pair then worked together when Mr Trump won the election and put Dr Oz on the President’s Council.
Then in 2022, Mr Trump was integral to Dr Oz’s push for Senate, giving him his eagerly sought-after endorsement.
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“Women, in particular, are drawn to Dr Oz for his advice and counsel. I have seen this many times over the years. They know him, believe in him, and trust him,” Mr Trump said when he first backed him.
“You know when you’re in television for 18 years, that’s like a poll,” added the billionaire, who himself starred on 14 seasons of The Apprentice US.
“That means people like you.”
What will his role be?
If confirmed by the Senate to take the role, Dr Oz would oversee Medicare, Medicaid, children’s health insurance and the Affordable Care Act, better known as “Obamacare”.
The programmes cover more than 160 million people, from new-borns to nursing home residents.
CMS also plays a central role in the nation’s $4.5trn health care economy, setting payment rates for hospitals, doctors, labs and other service providers.
“Dr Oz will be a leader in incentivising disease prevention, so we get the best results in the world for every dollar we spend on healthcare in our great country,” the president-elect said in a statement.
“He will also cut waste and fraud within our country’s most expensive government agency, which is a third of our nation’s healthcare spend, and a quarter of our entire national budget.”
Dr Oz said he was “honoured” to be nominated for the role and looked forward to “serving my country to Make America Healthy Again”.
He, like all of Mr Trump’s picks, must be questioned by members of the Senate before it votes on his appointment. Even with the Republicans in control, some of the picks could be blocked.
A Mexican navy ship has hit the Brooklyn Bridge during a promotional tour in New York City.
The New York Fire Department said authorities were responding to injuries but had no details about how many people might have been hurt or whether they were on the vessel or on the bridge.
Sky’s US partner network NBC News reports that at least three people were seriously injured in the incident.
The Mexican navy said in a post on X that the Cuauhtemoc, an academy training vessel, was damaged in the accident, which has prevented it from continuing its voyage.
Eyewitness video of the collision posted online showed the mast of the ship, which was flying a large Mexican flag, scraping the underneath of the bridge.
Pic: AP
The vessel then drifted toward the edge of the river as onlookers scrambled away from shore.
The Mexican navy said the status of personnel and material was under review by naval and local authorities, which were providing assistance.
The Cuauhtemoc is about 297ft long and 40ft wide, according to the Mexican navy. It sailed for the first time in 1982.
Pic: AP
Each year, it sets out at the end of classes at the naval military school to finish cadets’ training.
It left the Mexican port of Acapulco, on the Pacific coast, on 6 April with 277 people onboard, the navy said at the time.
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One person has died in a bomb explosion near a reproductive health clinic in California, authorities have said.
The incident took place in Palm Springs, a city two hours east of Los Angeles, and is being investigated as a possible car explosion.
The city’s mayor Ron DeHarte said one person died in the blast, adding that the bomb was “either in or near” a vehicle. The deceased’s identity is not known, Palm Springs police said.
Dr Maher Abdallah, who runs the American Reproductive Centers clinic, told the Associated Press his facility was damaged but all staff were safe and accounted for.
The explosion damaged the office space where the practice conducts patient consultations, but the IVF lab and stored embryos were unharmed, he added.
“I really have no clue what happened,” he said. “Thank God today happened to be a day that we have no patients.”
Debris covers the ground after the explosion. Pic: ABC7 Los Angeles/AP
In a statement posted on Facebook the clinic said it was “heartbroken” to learn someone died in the explosion and added: “Our deepest condolences go out to the individuals and families affected.”
It continued: “Our mission has always been to help build families, and in times like these, we are reminded of just how fragile and precious life is.
“In the face of this tragedy, we remain committed to creating hope – because we believe that healing begins with community, compassion, and care.
The clinic will be fully operational on Monday, it added.
“This moment has shaken us – but it has not stopped us. We will continue to serve with strength, love, and the hope that brings new life into the world,” the statement concluded.
Pic: ABC7 Los Angeles/AP
The Palm Springs city government said in a post on Facebook that the explosion happened on North Indian Canyon Drive, near East Tachevah Drive, before 11am local time (6pm GMT).
A burned-out car can be seen in a parking lot behind the building in aerial footage.
The blast caved in the clinic’s roof and blew debris across four lanes of the road.
Another person said he was inside a cannabis dispensary nearby when he felt a massive explosion.
Nima Tabrizi said: “The building just shook, and we go outside and there’s massive cloud smoke.”
Investigators from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are travelling to the scene to help assess what happened.
California governor Gavin Newsom has been briefed on the explosion, his press office said.
A former FBI director has been interviewed by the US Secret Service over a social media post that Republicans say was a call for violence against President Donald Trump.
James Comey, who led the FBI from 2013 until he was fired in 2017 by Mr Trump during his first term in office, shared a photo of seashells appearing to form the numbers “86 47”.
James Comey later removed the Instagram post. File pic: AP
He captioned the Instagram post: “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.”
Some have interpreted the post as a threat, alleging that 86 47 means to violently remove Mr Trump from office, including by assassination.
Mr Comey later removed the post, saying he thought the numbers “were a political message” and that he was not aware that the numeric arrangement could be associated with violence.
“I didn’t realise some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me, but I oppose violence of any kind, so I took the post down,” Mr Comey said.
Mr Trump rejected the former FBI director’s explanation, telling Fox News: “He knew exactly what that meant. A child knows what that meant… that meant assassination.”
Donald Trump Jr accused Mr Comey of “casually calling for my dad to be murdered”.
US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed in a post on X that Mr Comey had been interviewed as part of “an ongoing investigation” but gave no indication of whether he might face further action.
The Secret Service is part of the Department of Homeland Security.
White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich said Mr Comey had put out “what can clearly be interpreted as a hit on the sitting president of the United States”.
“This is deeply concerning to all of us and is being taken seriously,” Mr Budowich wrote on X.
Another White House official James Blair said the post was a “Clarion Call (…) to terrorists & hostile regimes to kill the President of the United States as he travels in the Middle East”.
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Mr Trump fired Mr Comey in May 2017 for botching an investigation into 2016 democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, the White House said at the time.
While Mr Comey was the director of the FBI, the agency opened an investigation into possible collusion between the Trump 2016 presidential campaign and Russia to help get Mr Trump elected.
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