Schwartz faces Senate as Trump’s third CDC director nominee

Internal CDC emails detail sweeping cuts and political pressure in 2025

Schwartz is Trump’s third attempt to fill the CDC’s top post

Dr. Erica Schwartz, President Trump’s nominee to direct the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will appear Wednesday before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in what is scheduled to be her first public appearance since her nomination in mid-April.

Schwartz is a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. She holds degrees in medicine, law, and public health, and she previously served as chief medical officer of the U.S. Coast Guard and as deputy surgeon general in the first Trump administration. On an Instagram account that was removed soon after her CDC nomination, Schwartz earlier this year voiced support for vaccines as tools to prevent illness and maintain military readiness, according to NPR.

Trump’s first nominee for CDC director, Dr. Dave Weldon, was withdrawn shortly before his confirmation hearing because he lacked the votes to pass. His second pick, Susan Monarez, received Senate confirmation but served less than a month before Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired her last summer.

If confirmed, Schwartz will report to Kennedy at a department where the secretary’s vaccine-policy agenda remains active. “The political agenda is still there,” Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, told NPR, though he noted that Trump has recently pulled Kennedy back because the vaccine agenda “is creating political damage.” Benjamin said that may give Schwartz room to follow the evidence with less political interference. In recent months, a federal judge has blocked several of Kennedy’s vaccine-policy changes, according to NPR.

Internal CDC emails detail sweeping cuts and political pressure in 2025

A set of internal CDC emails released by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont details exchanges between top CDC officials during a period from January through August 2025. During that period the agency lost thousands of staff members to cuts and attrition while facing public criticism from Kennedy, new layers of political oversight, and departures from normal procedures.

One email, dated Aug. 19, 2025, was sent by Matt Buckham, then chief of staff to Secretary Kennedy, to the recently confirmed director Monarez. “I wanted to elevate the absolute need for political review of major policy decisions at CDC,” Buckham wrote, instructing Monarez to “err on the side of caution.” NPR reported that other documents show HHS officials were confused about who was leading the CDC, and that Kennedy’s delegates worked to direct vaccine-policy outcomes against the legal and scientific advice of CDC staff and general counsel.

Agency morale and the road ahead

At a CDC all-hands meeting last month, Sean Slovenski, a former Walmart executive who now serves as the agency’s deputy director and chief operating officer, addressed the accumulated strain on the workforce. “If any organization went through one of the things you’ve had to endure in the last year and a half, it would be traumatic to that organization, institution, for years to come. You’ve had multiple ones,” Slovenski said, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by NPR from a current CDC employee who requested anonymity for fear of professional repercussions.

Slovenski pledged that an upcoming reorganization would be carried out carefully. “I’m not promising that everyone will be happy. What I’m promising is that everyone will be clear,” he said. “Everyone will know what’s coming and they’ll know it was done in the most thoughtful manner.”

NPR reported that Schwartz is generally expected to clear the confirmation process. Dr. Marcus Plescia, health director for Fulton County, Georgia, where the CDC is headquartered, told NPR that Schwartz has the credentials and experience for the job and that people are very optimistic about her candidacy and are supportive of her potentially being in the role.

“What we really need right now is a CDC director who can step in and be a spokesperson on some of the emerging issues we’re facing,” Plescia said.

The same Wednesday session also includes a confirmation hearing for Sean Kaufman, the White House nominee for assistant secretary for strategic preparedness and response at HHS. Kaufman is a senior adviser for global affairs at the CDC and has served as an expert witness for people who faced professional consequences for refusing COVID-19 vaccines, according to his LinkedIn profile. NPR reported that Kaufman has questioned the safety and need for universal COVID-19 and hepatitis B vaccines.