The White House is withdrawing Dave Weldon’s nomination for CDC director, Fox News Digital reported, noting that Weldon was slated to have his confirmation hearing on Thursday.
In a Thursday morning statement, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee announced the cancellation of his hearing. However, it confirmed that votes will still be held on the nominations of Dr. Jay Bhattacharya for NIH director and Dr. Marty Makary for FDA Commissioner.
“It became clear that the votes weren’t there in the Senate for him to get confirmed. This would have been a futile effort,” a source familiar with the nomination told Fox News.
The outlet added that, at the time of publication, there was no official reason for pulling the nomination from the Trump White House.
Weldon, a physician and former Florida congressman, has a record of making vaccine-critical comments that were expected to come under scrutiny during his hearing. In 2007, he remarked that there were “legitimate questions” regarding potential links between vaccines and childhood neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism, Fox noted.
Moreover, during his time in Congress, he co-sponsored legislation with former Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) that aimed to ban mercury in vaccines.
Vaccine skepticism was repeatedly raised during Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s confirmation hearing for Health and Human Services secretary. Democrats on the Senate HELP Committee frequently cited his claims linking vaccines to autism and questioned him about his tenure as chairman and chief litigation counsel for Children’s Health Defense—a nonprofit that has consistently opposed vaccines and filed numerous lawsuits against the federal government.
Meanwhile, last week counselor to the president Alina Habba criticized Democrats for their persistent attempts to obstruct her boss’s agenda.
During an interview on “America Reports,” Habba spoke with co-host John Roberts and Sandra Smith about the president’s first month back in the White House and what to expect as his first 100 days in office nears completion.
Habba spoke about the Trump administration’s creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and the group’s efforts to locate waste, fraud, and abuse in government spending over the years. She also joked that if Democrats are this upset now, just wait until more of the “fraud” gets exposed.
“There was a mandate. It was on November 5th and we swept the country, and that’s because they weren’t OK with what the last administration did,” Habba said. “So, the mandate does not come from the legislative history, it comes from the American people who voted President Trump and his America First agenda. And that is what we’re going to do.
“And that is what we are doing, exactly what Americans voted for and we are going to continue to do that. So, you know, again, left-wing narrative, we expect more to come because we’re shaking things up. President Trump is a disruptor to help America. Every single person that is going to get confirmed and has gotten confirmed is America First agenda. That’s what we’re going to do,” she added.
Habba also addressed the process of confirming Trump’s Cabinet nominees.
“President Trump’s made it clear that they better cooperate and push our people through. These are people that are on point with our mandates, with what America voted for, and they’re playing games,” she said. “They’re saying they’re not available. They’re doing what they need to do to slow roll this. And frankly, we have acting attorney generals, we have people acting in the DoJ running the show, helping President Trump push every single EO, and there has been many of them. Government officials need to cooperate as well. And I have — I think America is tired of this.”
