EXCLUSIVE: Trump Nom Dr. Oz ‘Committed’ To Protecting Children From Trans Procedures
Mehmet Oz, President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told The Daily Wire on Tuesday evening that he is opposed to all transgender procedures on minors.
“Dr. Oz fully understands the harms caused to minors by such procedures and is committed to implementing President Donald J. Trump’s agenda of protecting children so they can grow to live out their God-given potential,” an Oz spokesman told The Daily Wire on Tuesday evening.
The statement, which comes shortly after Oz advanced out of the Senate Finance Committee by a 14-13 vote, may clear up some apprehensions about where the nominee stands on hot-button transgender issues, which drove many voters to the polls this fall. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) had voiced concerns about Oz’s record on both transgender issues and abortion, pointing out that in the past, Oz had “praised trans surgeries for minors and supported hormone treatments & puberty blockers for kids in the past,” as well as “criticized state laws protecting life.”
“I hope he’s changed his views to match President Trump!” Hawley tweeted this week. “We need the Trump agenda at CMS.”
A member of Oz’s team told The Daily Wire on Tuesday night that Oz had requested a meeting with Hawley, but the Missouri senator declined. A source close to the Missouri Republican countered that Hawley did not decline the meeting, but was rather following standard Senate procedure in waiting to schedule his meeting with Oz until he received answers to the questions he sent over in his petition, which Oz has not provided.
On Tuesday evening, after hearing that Oz had promised to implement the president’s agenda on protecting children from irreversible transgender procedures, a spokesman for the senator told The Daily Wire of Oz: “We look forward to hearing from him.”
Dr. Mehmet Oz arrives for his confirmation hearing with the Senate Finance Committee in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on March 14, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
The Daily Wire previously reported that Oz had drawn fire for his past stances on abortion when he campaigned for a Pennsylvania senate seat in 2022. Notably, Oz had defended Roe v. Wade in 2019 as a measure that prevents coat hanger abortions, saying he did not “want to interfere” with a woman’s ability to abort her baby, accusing pro-lifers of “picking fights,” and suggesting that pro-life laws would make businesses leave red states.
Oz clarified where he stood in a 2022 op-ed where he promised: “I will be a bold voice in the Senate and a proud champion for the pro-life movement. I won’t ever shy away from sharing my pro-life beliefs, even as pro-abortion advocates in medicine, the media, and Big Tech try to silence me.”
Hawley is a staunch defender of both children targeted by transgender ideology and unborn babies whose lives are lost through abortion, and has positioned himself as a sort of safeguard over the past few months since Trump’s inauguration.
In January, he urged the president to release the pro-life prisoners imprisoned by President Joe Biden’s Justice Department (which Trump did), intervened as Texas Children’s whistleblower Eithan Haim faced DOJ punishment (the case against him was dropped), and most recently lobbied against the Food and Drug Administration’s newly selected chief counsel Hillary Perkins by airing scrutiny of her record on abortion and vaccines (she resigned the following day, and accuses Hawley of smearing her).
A source close to Hawley told The Daily Wire earlier this month that the senator’s vociferous opposition to Perkins at the FDA stemmed from his concerns that the Biden administration’s abortion drug rules completely undermine the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, and that the senator is worried about the Trump administration waffling on handling the matter of abortion drugs.
