President Donald Trump's latest surgeon general nominee, Nicole Saphier, reportedly deleted social media posts with commentary critical of some of the Trump administration's health-related policy and messaging. She pushed similar rhetoric on her podcast and Fox News.
As a Fox News medical contributor and podcast host, Saphier said the administration's announcement recommending pregnant women not take Tylenol was “painful to watch” and “really irresponsible” and “some of it was factually incorrect.” She also criticized the administration’s handling of measles on her podcast, saying it’s “pretty sad, pretty embarrassing from a public health perspective,” that the country is “at risk of losing” its measles eradication status.
On April 30, Trump nominated Saphier after his previous nominee, Casey Means, reportedly “faced opposition because of her significant conflicts of interest in the wellness industry and a lack of support for vaccines.” Saphier repeatedly downplayed the COVID-19 pandemic and undermined related public health measures while at Fox, and she “has questioned routine childhood vaccines and other public health measures.”
New CNN reporting revealed that Saphier deleted social media posts in which she criticized Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s health policies, including Trump’s comments linking Tylenol use to autism, the administration’s handling of measles, and changes to federal vaccine policy:
Just two months before she was selected as President Donald Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, Dr. Nicole Saphier suggested the administration was hiding that measles was spreading widely enough in the United States for the country to lose its “elimination” status until after the midterm elections.
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Saphier also repeatedly criticized Trump’s messaging surrounding Tylenol use during pregnancy after the president publicly urged pregnant women to avoid the medication over unproven claims linking it to autism and told women to “tough it out” rather than take it for pain or fever.
“As a mom of 3 kids, I don’t love a man telling me to ‘tough it out’ when it comes to pregnancy. Words matter. Facts matter too,” she wrote in a since-deleted post from September 2025.
Saphier also levied similar criticisms at the administration during appearances on Fox and her own podcast Wellness Unmasked.
Saphier appeared on Fox News Radio's Charles Payne's Unstoppable Prosperity Podcast in September 2025 to discuss a press conference where Trump declared, “Don't take Tylenol. … If you're pregnant, don't take Tylenol. And don't give it to the baby after the baby is born,” and claimed there is a link Tylenol and autism, which experts dispute.
During the appearance, Saphier said her “biggest concern” was the “messaging” that pregnant mothers should not take Tylenol. “If women are so afraid of Tylenol during pregnancy and let their fevers go unchecked, you’re going to see even more cases of autism,” she said.
In a September 2025 Wellness Unmasked episode, Saphier covered the Trump administration's press conference on links between Tylenol and autism. During the episode, she said, “There was a lot of information presented at this press conference. Some of it was factually correct. Some of it was factually incorrect,” and she called it “painful to watch” and “full of hyperbole.”
She explained that there have been many “observational studies” on possible links between Tylenol and autism but they have not proved a causal link.
A month later, Saphier called some of the administration's remarks on Tylenol “really irresponsible” because Trump was not “wholly transparent about the data that backs up those comments.”
Saphier has shared criticism about the rise in measles in the United States on both Fox News and her podcast. In one podcast episode, she said it’s “pretty sad, pretty embarrassing from a public health perspective” that the country is “at risk of losing” its measles eradication status.
And in a 2025 Fox News interview, she pointed to “declining vaccination rates” as a cause of outbreaks of measles across the country. According to Saphier, the “mishandling of COVID” led to declining rates, and “we’re going to see further declines in vaccination rates” and “more measles cases” as “we are seeing even more mistrust and confusion” with “the way things are going right now with the CDC and current vaccination advisory committees.”
