Trump adds Dr. Oz to his Cabinet of clowns

Donald Trump on Tuesday nominated Mehmet Oz, the quack television doctor who swindles his viewers out of their hard-earned cash for his bullshit weight-loss supplements, to serve as the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Yes, Trump wants Dr. Oz—whom voters resoundingly rejected in 2022 for a Pennsylvania Senate seat because they were repelled by his smarmy persona and fountain of lies —to be in charge of some of the largest and most critical programs the federal government runs.

If confirmed, Oz could work alongside Robert F. Kennedy Jr. —another unqualified quack whose dangerous ideas around vaccines, raw milk, and pharmaceuticals have scientists terrified for the future of America’s health.



Trump nominated RFK Jr. to run the Department of Health and Human Services. “America is facing a Healthcare Crisis, and there may be no Physician more qualified and capable than Dr.

Oz to Make America Healthy Again,” Trump said in a news release . “He is an eminent Physician, Heart Surgeon, Inventor, and World-Class Communicator, who has been at the forefront of healthy living for decades. Dr.

Oz will work closely with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to take on the illness industrial complex, and all the horrible chronic diseases left in its wake.

” During Oz’s failed 2022 Senate bid, doctors slammed Oz for pushing junk science and taking advantage of viewers of his television program by selling them useless health-tracking devices and supplements promising to help them lose weight fast. In 2015, the Federal Trade Commission forced one of the supplement makers that Oz promoted to pay $9 million to consumers for making “deceptive and unsubstantiated claims about weight loss products,” Vox reported at the time. In fact, that same year, doctors wrote a letter to Columbia University, where Oz had a faculty position, saying that Oz had “an egregious lack of integrity by promoting quack treatments and cures in the interest of personal financial gain.

” And a 2014 study from the British Medical Journal found that half of the recommendations Oz made on his now defunct program “The Dr. Oz Show” either were not based on medical evidence, or were flat out wrong. “Recommendations made on medical talk shows often lack adequate information on specific benefits or the magnitude of the effects of these benefits,” the study concluded.

“Approximately half of the recommendations have either no evidence or are contradicted by the best available evidence. Potential conflicts of interest are rarely addressed. The public should be skeptical about recommendations made on medical talk shows.

” Even more disconcerting is that nestled in the release announcing Oz’s nomination is a hint that Trump is looking to make cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, which provide health insurance to millions of elderly and low-income Americans, respectively. “ 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,” Trump wrote, again making ridiculous capitalizations for no reason. Ultimately, Trump appears to like Oz because he is a TV figure.

“‘The Dr. Oz Show,’ where he taught millions of Americans how to make healthier lifestyle choices, and gave a strong voice to the key pillars of the [Make America Healthy Again] Movement,” Trump wrote in the statement announcing Oz’s nomination. Oz isn’t the only television figure Trump nominated to his cabinet.

Trump picked Pete Hegseth , a Fox News host accused of sexual assault , to lead the Department of Defense. And he picked former “Real World” and “Road Rules” contestant Sean Duffy to serve as the head of the Department of Transportation. Aaron Fritschner, deputy chief of staff to Virginia Democratic Rep.

Don Beyer, raised an interesting point. “What would Trump's nominations look like if he watched cartoons instead of talk news shows?” Fritschner wrote in a post on X. “Infrastructure czar Bob the Builder.

” Trump’s cast of freaks makes the movie “Idiocracy” look like nonfiction..