Trump administration nears CDC pick as agency faces ongoing leadership changes
WASHINGTON – The Trump administration is closing in on its pick to lead the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as the nation’s top public health agency grapples with a barrage of attacks and leadership changes in the past year.
Ernie Fletcher, a family physician and former governor of Kentucky, and Joseph Marine, a cardiologist at Johns Hopkins Medicine, are among the candidates on the short list, according to people familiar with the matter. The agency has had three leaders in the last year, a sign of the upheaval in public health agencies during President Donald Trump’s second term.
The White House has a looming deadline to nominate a new CDC director within 210 days of the previous leader’s exit. The new person would replace National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya, who has also run the agency in an acting capacity since February.
Chris Klomp, chief counselor at the US Department of Health and Human Services, said at a Stat event Thursday that he was very optimistic the agency would pick an “excellent leader.”
HHS referred a request for comment about the selection process to the White House. “Any reporting about administration appointments until announced by the White House is baseless speculation,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said.
Attempts to reach Fletcher and Marine were unsuccessful.
Fletcher or Marine could offer stable leadership for the agency that’s been thrown into chaos under HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The CDC has lost about a quarter of its career scientists and physicians, and it experienced a revolving door at its highest ranks. An August 2025 shooting outside its Atlanta headquarters that authorities said was motivated by criticism over COVID-19 shots rattled staff.
Meanwhile, Kennedy’s 2025 overhaul of the committee that decides insurance coverage and access to free vaccines was stayed by a judge on March 16, casting doubt on the validity of immunization recommendations from HHS made during the past year.
Fletcher is seen as a more conventional choice. He has not expressed many public views about vaccination, though he received a COVID-19 shot with five other former Kentucky governors in 2021. He holds a medical degree from the University of Kentucky, has a background in politics and is a former Air Force fighter pilot.
His credentials fit with the administration’s recent pullback from vaccine criticism, which began after Republican-led polling showed the shots are popular – even among supporters of the Make America Healthy Again movement.
Marine is more aligned with the MAHA movement. He has been skeptical of the need for repeated doses of COVID-19 vaccines on the Sensible Medicine newsletter on Substack, and he has criticized top health agencies over the handling of the pandemic. The newsletter was run in part by Vinay Prasad, who in April will leave the Food and Drug Administration, where he was the top vaccine regulator.
Marine has also joined the MAHA movement’s growing criticism on X of the Boston judge who paused the activities and decisions of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices earlier this month.
Trump was often at odds with public health officials during the COVID-19 pandemic. During his second administration, he’s had trouble keeping a permanent CDC director.
His first nominee for the job, former Congressman Dave Weldon, was about to start his Senate confirmation hearing when his nomination was pulled, in large part because of earlier vaccine criticism.
Susan Monarez, who was acting head of the agency after Trump’s inauguration, was confirmed by the Senate in July. She was fired less than a month later following a disagreement with Kennedy about immunization policy.
After Monarez, then-Deputy HHS Secretary Jim O’Neill led the agency in an acting capacity. He left in February and was replaced by NIH Director Bhattacharya.