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 case of the flesh-eating screwworm parasite has been detected in a person in the United States for the first time.
The parasitic flies eat cattle and other warm-blooded animals alive, with an outbreak beginning in Central America and southern Mexico late last year.
It is ultimately fatal if left untreated.
The case in the US was identified in a person from Maryland who had travelled from Guatemala.
Beth Thompson, South Dakota’s state veterinarian, told Reuters on Sunday that she was notified of the case within the
last week.
A Maryland state government official also confirmed the case.
The person was treated and prevention measures were implemented, Reuters reports.
The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Maryland Department of Health did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
What is screwworm?
The female screwworm fly lays eggs in the wounds of warm-blooded animals and once hatched, hundreds of screwworm larvae use their sharp mouths to burrow through living flesh.
It can be devastating in cattle and wildlife, and has also been known to infect humans.
Treatment is onerous, and involves removing hundreds of larvae and thoroughly disinfecting wounds. They are largely survivable if treated early enough.
The confirmed case is likely to rattle the beef and cattle futures market, which has seen record-high prices because of tight supplies.
The US typically imports more than a million cattle from Mexico each year to process into beef. The screwworm outbreak could cost Texas – the biggest cattle-producing state – $1.8bn (£1.3bn) in livestock deaths, labour costs and medication
expenses.
A view shows a calf after being sprayed with a disinfectant spray to prevent screwworm. Pic: Reuters
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has set traps and sent mounted officers along the border, but it has faced criticism from some cattle producers and market analysts for not acting faster to pursue increased fly production via a sterile fly facility.
What is a sterile fly facility?
The case also comes just one week after the US agriculture secretary, Brooke Rollins, travelled to Texas to announce plans to build a sterile fly facility there in a bid to combat the pest. Ms Rollins had pledged repeatedly to keep screwworm out of the country.
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A sterile fly facility produces a large number of male flies and sterilises them – these males are then released to mate with wild female insects, which collapses the wild population over time. This method eradicated screwworm from the US in the 1960s.
Mexico has also taken efforts to limit the spread of the pest, which can kill livestock within weeks if not treated. It had started to build a $51m sterile fly production facility.
The USDA has previously said 500 million flies would need to be released weekly to push the fly back to the Darien Gap, the stretch of rainforest between Panama and Colombia.
National Guard troops deployed to Washington DC in an effort to mitigate crime will begin carrying firearms, an official has said.
Defence secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the authorisation of roughly 2,000 National Guard troops to begin carrying weapons.
The majority of the guard members will carry M17 pistols, their service-issued weapons, while a small number will be armed with M4 rifles, reports Sky’s US partner organisation, NBC News.
The troops are authorised to use their weapons for self-protection.
A White House official told NBC News that despite being armed, as of Saturday night, the National Guard troops in DC are not making arrests, and will continue to work on protecting federal assets.
The troops were largely deployed from outside the state and were framed by President Trump as a concerted effort to tackle crime and homelessness in the nation’s capital.
Such deployments are not common, and are typically used in response natural disasters or civil unrest.
Democrats have bashed the deployment as partisan in nature, accusing Mr Trump of trying to exert his presidential authority through scare tactics and said his primary targets have been cities with black leadership.
Armed members of the South Carolina National Guard patrol outside of Union Station. Pic: AP
Pentagon plans to deploy US army to Chicago
Yesterday it was reported that the Pentagon was drafting plans to deploy the US army in Chicago, the largest city in the state.
The governor of Illinois then accused Mr Trump of “attempting to manufacture a crisis” and “abusing his power to distract from the pain he is causing working families”.
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Officials familiar with the proposals told the Washington Post that several options were being weighed up by the US defence department, including mobilising thousands of National Guard troops in Chicago as early as September.
Mr Trump had told reporters on Friday that “Chicago is a mess”, before attacking the city’s mayor, Brandon Johnson, and hinting “we’ll straighten that one out probably next”.
The governor of Illinois has accused Donald Trump of “attempting to manufacture a crisis” over reports the US president was considering deploying the military in the state.
US newspaper The Washington Post reported on Saturday that the Pentagon was drafting plans to deploy the US army in Chicago, the state capital.
It comes as part of Mr Trump’s crackdown on crime, homelessness, and illegal immigration in mainly Democrat-run cities. He recently deployed the National Guard in Washington DC.
In a statement responding to the report, governor JB Pritzker said Illinois had “received no requests or outreach from the federal government asking if we need assistance, and we have made no requests for federal intervention”.
He added: “The safety of the people of Illinois is always my top priority.
“There is no emergency that warrants the President of the United States federalising the Illinois National Guard, deploying the National Guard from other states, or sending active duty military within our own borders.”
The governor then said: “Donald Trump is attempting to manufacture a crisis, politicise Americans who serve in uniform, and continue abusing his power to distract from the pain he is causing working families.
“We will continue to follow the law, stand up for the sovereignty of our state, and protect the people of Illinois.”
Officials familiar with the proposals told the Post that several options were being weighed up by the US defence department, including mobilising thousands of National Guard troops in Chicago as early as September.
The Pentagon said it would not comment on planned operations, adding: “The department is a planning organisation and is continuously working with other agency partners on plans to protect federal assets and personnel.”
People protest against President Donald Trump’s use of federal law enforcement and National Guard troops in Washington DC. Pic: AP
Mr Trump, however, told reporters on Friday that “Chicago is a mess,” before attacking the city’s mayor Brandon Johnson and hinting “we’ll straighten that one out probably next”.
Mr Johnson has not yet commented on Saturday’s reports, but said on Friday that the president’s approach to tackling crime has been “uncoordinated, uncalled for and unsound”.
“There are many things the federal government could do to help us reduce crime and violence in Chicago, but sending in the military is not one of them,” he added.
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It comes after around 800 National Guard troops were deployed in Washington DC earlier this month, despite the US capital’s mayor revealing crime in the capital was at its “lowest level in 30 years”.
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According to preliminary figures from Washington DC’s Metropolitan Police, violent crime is down 26% in 2025 – after dropping 35% in 2024 compared with 2023.
In June Mr Trump ordered 700 US Army marines and 4,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles in California, during protests over mass immigration raids.
The deployment came against the wishes of state governor Gavin Newsom, who said: “The federal government is sowing chaos so they can have an excuse to escalate.
“That is not the way any civilised country behaves.”
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