White House weighs Erica Schwartz to lead CDC amid turmoil

The White House is considering Erica Schwartz to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a move that would make her Donald Trump’s third nominee for the agency and signal how carefully the administration is trying to balance scientific authority with political control.

Schwartz brings a long public health résumé to a job that has become a test of trust. She served as deputy U.S. surgeon general from January 2019 to April 2021 during Trump’s first term and is a retired rear admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. Her public biography says she spent 24 years in uniformed service, including as the Coast Guard’s chief medical officer and director of health, safety and work life from 2015 to 2019.

That background could help steady an agency that has spent months in turmoil. The CDC has been pulled through leadership upheaval and vaccine-policy conflict, with public health experts warning that the next director will inherit staff distrust, diminished credibility and a politically fraught vaccination agenda. Under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the agency has also been swept into a broader shakeup that has left its mission and leadership under strain.

The Senate confirmation path is no easier than the management challenge. If Schwartz is nominated, she would enter a precedent set by Susan Monarez, whose nomination was approved by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions by a 12-11 vote on July 9, 2025. Monarez was then confirmed by the full Senate 51-47 on July 29, 2025, and sworn in on July 31, 2025, as the nation’s first Senate-confirmed CDC director.

That narrow confirmation fight underscored how much the agency’s top job has become entangled in national politics. Now the White House is also said to be weighing three other people for senior roles that would support Schwartz, a sign that the administration is trying to build a team that can satisfy both public health credentials and the White House’s ideological priorities.

For the CDC, the stakes extend beyond personnel. The agency sits in Atlanta with the next health emergency still a matter of when, not if, and repeated leadership changes have left it vulnerable at the moment when credibility, speed and public trust matter most.