rewrite this title White House withdraws controversial pick to run the CDC

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will have to wait a little longer for a new leader.

The White House withdrew its nomination of Dr. Dave Weldon, a former Florida congressman, shortly before his scheduled appearance before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Thursday.

A White House official not authorized to speak publicly told NPR that Weldon didn’t have the votes needed for confirmation by the Senate.

President Trump announced Weldon as his pick to lead the CDC on Truth Social in November, praising Weldon’s experience as a medical doctor, Army veteran, politician and family man.

In the months since, Weldon’s record on vaccines has been scrutinized, including debunked claims about vaccine safety.

Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington who sits on the health committee, said Weldon had made some of those claims in a Feb. 20 meeting with her.

“I was deeply disturbed to hear Dr. Weldon repeat debunked claims about vaccines — it’s dangerous to put someone in charge at CDC who believes the lie that our rigorously tested childhood vaccine schedule is somehow exposing kids to toxic levels of mercury or causing autism,” she said in a statement released in response to the withdrawal of Weldon’s nomination.

There were also doubts about Weldon from several Republican members on the health committee. Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski said she raised her concerns about his views on vaccines with the White House.

Weldon also said in a statement that Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana were likely to vote against him.

The four-page statement was published by The Washington Post and The New York Times. NPR attempted to reach Weldon, but didn’t hear back.

Dr. Georges Benjamin, head of the American Public Health Association, says Weldon’s nomination was “doomed to failure” by a constellation of events.

Benjamin cited Weldon’s anti-vaccine history amid the developing measles outbreak and the chaos in the federal government, including the CDC. “Dr. Weldon was not the right guy for the job,” he said.

Weldon, a Republican, represented a district in central Florida from 1995 to 2009. After his stint in the House of Representatives, he ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in 2012 and the Florida House of Representatives in 2024, but has otherwise kept largely out of the public eye.

After his congressional career, Weldon returned to practice as an internal medicine doctor in Florida and recently held leadership positions at Privia Quality Network Central Florida, a company that supports physician practices. He was also board chairman for the pro-Israel advocacy group Israel Allies Foundation, according to forms he submitted to the U.S. Office of Government Ethics.