Erica Schwartz, a deputy U.S. surgeon general during President Donald Trump’s first term, is the White House’s leading contender to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to three people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk about the planned selection.
The potential pick of Schwartz would be the latest attempt to fill a post that has sat largely vacant during Trump’s second term amid political tensions over vaccines and the agency’s role. She left government in January 2021 after the incoming Biden administration told her that she would not be selected to serve as acting U.S. surgeon general.
The selection of Schwartz, a longtime Navy officer and a retired rear admiral in the Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service, would mark the third time the administration has tried to put a permanent director in place at the nation’s leading public health agency — an unusually turbulent stretch for an institution responsible for tracking outbreaks, guiding vaccine policy and responding to public health emergencies. The CDC has been without a permanent director for all but 29 days since Trump took office in January 2025.
The people cautioned that the selection is not final and that Trump could still opt for another candidate.
The White House did not immediately respond to questions about Schwartz. If formally nominated, she would need to be confirmed by the Senate to serve in the role. Schwartz holds a medical degree from Brown University and a law degree from the University of Maryland.
The Trump administration is also considering three other people to serve in senior roles supporting Schwartz, pending Trump’s approval, according to the people with knowledge of the planned picks. Sean Slovenski, a former Walmart executive, is the planned pick to serve in a chief operating officer role, and Jennifer Shuford, an infectious-disease physician who is Texas’s health commissioner, would serve in a senior medical role. Sara Brenner, a senior Food and Drug Administration official, would also move over to the CDC.
Schwartz, Slovenski, Shuford and Brenner did not immediately respond to questions sent to email addresses and phone numbers associated with them.
Chris Klomp, the chief counselor of the Department of Health and Human Services, presented the four names to the White House as a potential team to help revamp the public health agency. The White House tapped Klomp in February to help stabilize operations across the health agencies after a string of controversies and staffing miscues.
The administration’s first choice to run the CDC, Dave Weldon, a former U.S. congressman from Florida aligned with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who had questioned vaccine safety, was withdrawn in March 2025 after Republican senators signaled he would not be confirmed.
Officials then turned to Susan Monarez, a scientist already serving as acting CDC director. But she was dismissed in August, less than a month after her confirmation, amid clashes with Kennedy over his plans to reshape vaccine policy.
The planned selection of Schwartz and her potential colleagues comes as administration officials try to avoid a repeat of those missteps and navigate a political landscape in which Kennedy and his allies have pushed aggressively to overhaul long-standing vaccine practices.
Schwartz “is outstanding in every way,” said Brett Giroir, who served as assistant secretary of health during the first Trump administration and worked closely with Schwartz during the nation’s coronavirus response. He said Schwartz helped navigate difficult moments, such as when the Trump administration began to set up drive-through testing sites and needed someone to legally serve as the physician ordering those tests — a responsibility she volunteered for.
“Rear Admiral Schwartz became the physician responsible for ordering millions of tests across the country — undoubtedly the highest number of tests ordered by any single physician in the United States, if not the world,” Giroir wrote in his book, “Memoir of a Pandemic.”
Administration officials have faced competing pressures in seeking a leader to helm the CDC. They have been trying to weigh finding a nominee acceptable to Kennedy and his allies, many of whom are deeply skeptical of vaccines, while also choosing someone who can win Senate confirmation and stabilize a shaken workforce. Officials are wary of further unnerving voters alarmed by the way Kennedy has upended the childhood immunization schedule and reshaped vaccine policy. Polling has shown that vaccines could be a GOP liability in this year’s midterm elections.
While officials have searched for a permanent leader for the CDC, National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya has been overseeing the Atlanta-based agency, an unusual arrangement where one official has been managing two of the federal government’s largest public health agencies.
Whoever ultimately leads the CDC will need to navigate ongoing legal battles over Kennedy’s changes to national vaccine policy, confront a mounting measles outbreak and rebuild a workforce that current and former officials say has been deeply shaken by months of upheaval and political pressure.
Rachel Roubein contributed to this report.
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