President Trump selects influencer Dr. Casey Means as Surgeon General
US President Donald Trump has selected health entrepreneur and wellness influencer Dr. Casey Means to be the US Surgeon General.
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On February 25th, Dr. Casey Means faced members of Congress at his Senate confirmation hearing.
“We will take a break at 11 o’clock to allow Dr. Means to take care of our children,” committee chairman Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) said in his opening remarks.
Means, President Donald Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, was originally scheduled to testify in October. However, around that time she went into labor and the hearing was postponed.
This was perhaps the most notable recent example of the administration’s baby boom boom.
Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kansas, introduced Means at the February hearing, saying, “I’m especially pleased to be able to convene this long-overdue meeting, but labor is one of the best excuses to delay a hearing. So, congratulations to the family. We hope that baby Phoenix, who is 17 weeks old today, is doing well.”
President Trump has said publicly that he wants a baby boom. Are you here? That certainly seems to be the case within his administration. But more broadly, experts say the question is complex.
Pregnancy in the Trump Administration and the Rise of Natalism
Recently, several pregnancies associated with the Trump administration and the high-profile birtherism movement have gained attention.
Vice President J.D. Vance’s wife, Usha Vance, is scheduled to give birth to her fourth child in July, a historic first as no sitting vice president’s wife has given birth while serving as vice president. Stephen Miller, Trump’s homeland security adviser and deputy chief of staff for policy, and his wife, political podcaster Katie Miller, are expecting their fourth child. Fox News reported that President Donald Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair and his wife are also looking forward to it. And White House press secretary Caroline Levitt announced in December that she was pregnant with her second child.
“I am also incredibly grateful to President Trump and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles for their support and fostering a family-friendly environment at the White House,” Levitt said in a social media post announcing her pregnancy.
These announcements come at a time when birtherism, a movement that promotes childbirth in response to declining global birth rates, is on the rise. Last year, President Trump said he would become known as the “fertilized president.”
In his second term, President Trump has pushed hard for American women to have more children, including creating a $1,000 savings account for newborns and creating a childcare tax credit.
Karen Guzzo, director of the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said the recent pregnancy announcement is an example of the Trump administration trying to “walk the talk.”
Natalism has a wide range of supporters. Some people are religious and some are atheists. Some people conceive a child naturally, while others conceive a child through in vitro fertilization or in vitro fertilization. Despite differences of opinion, there is one thing everyone agrees on. The problem is that America’s birth rate is plummeting, and unless something changes, society could be doomed.
Malcolm Collins, a prominent birther and political podcaster, and Simone Collins have five children. They told USA TODAY in April that they wanted at least seven children.
“Natalism has become the right-wing equivalent of global warming. This is a broad statistical problem that will lead to the collapse of our civilization,” said Malcolm Collins. And for some reason, the other person can’t admit it.
Is President Trump hoping for a baby boom?
Will these moves by the Trump administration result in a measurable change in birth rates? Experts say not, or at least not yet.
Here’s what we know: Conservatives have more babies than liberals, according to a study by the Family Institute, a family policy think tank. The institute found a relationship between the percentage of a county’s population that voted for Trump in 2024 and the county’s birth rate. In counties where less than 25% of people voted for Trump, the median total fertility rate was 1.31. In counties where 75% or more voted for Trump, the median total fertility rate was 1.84. The link between voting Republican and having more children grows stronger over time, the study found.
But in general, the U.S. birth rate has been declining, with the U.S. birth rate currently at 1.62 births per woman, below the replacement rate needed to prevent U.S. population decline, according to the latest data released in July 2025. The country’s declining birth rate reflects global trends.
Emily Oster, an economics professor at Brown University and CEO of Parent Data, a parenting research forum, said it will take years for the effects of the Trump administration’s baby boom and pronatalist policies to show up in the data.
Oster suspects things will be complicated by other recent policy changes, such as cuts to Head Start and changes to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) eligibility, which are supposedly making it harder for people to have children.
Guzzo said it’s clear President Trump wants to have more babies, but “to the right people,” including high-income, native-born couples.
On the other hand, some women are simply waiting longer to have children, which means the drop in birth rates “might not be as big as we think,” Oster said.
“Like anything else that has to do with political affiliation, we don’t know if it’s about political affiliation,” Oster said. “For example, we know that religious communities tend to have higher birth rates.”
To see real changes in fertility rates, Oster said, the main theories behind declining fertility rates – affordability and lack of resources – need to be addressed with more specific family supports, such as paid maternity leave, affordable childcare, and health insurance coverage of fertility services.
“I don’t think most people base their fertility on the fertility of the people in the current administration, whatever that may be,” Oster said.
USA TODAY Wellness Writers Sara Moniuszko and Charles Trepany contributed to this report.
Madeline Mitchell’s role covering women and the care economy for USA TODAY is supported by a partnership with Pivotal and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.
Contact Madeline at: memitchell@usatoday.com and @maddiemitch_ With X.
