President-elect Donald Trump says he is nominating Dr. Mehmet Oz, who hosted a long-running television talk show, to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
“Dr. Oz will be a leader in promoting disease prevention, so we get the best results in the world for every dollar spent on health care in our great country,” Trump said in a statement. “He will also reduce waste and fraud within our nation’s most expensive government agency, which accounts for a third of our nation’s health care spending, and a quarter of our entire national budget.”
Oz ran unsuccessfully for Senate in Pennsylvania in 2022 as a Republican and an outspoken Trump supporter.
Earlier, Trump selected Howard Litnick, the head of brokerage and investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald and a cryptocurrency enthusiast, as his nominee for Commerce Secretary, in which he plans to raise and implement Trump’s tariffs. Will play a key role in executing the projects.
Trump made the announcement on his social media platform, Truth Social, on Tuesday. In the post, Trump said Lutnick “will lead our tariff and trade agenda, with additional direct responsibility for the Office of the United States Trade Representative.”
Lutnick co-chairs Trump’s transition team, along with Linda McMahon, a former wrestling executive who previously led Trump’s Small Business Administration. Both are tasked with advancing candidates for key roles in the next administration.
The nomination would put Lutnick in charge of a broad cabinet agency involved in funding new computer chip factories, imposing trade sanctions, releasing economic data and monitoring the weather. It’s also a position in which connections with CEOs and the wider business community are critical.
“Tariffs are a wonderful tool for the president to use — we need to protect the American worker,” Lutnick, an advocate of broad tariffs, told CNBC in September. During the campaign, Trump proposed a 60% tariff on goods from China and up to a 20% tariff on everything imported from the United States.
Mainstream economists are generally skeptical of tariffs, viewing them as a largely ineffective way for governments to raise money and promote prosperity.
Lutnick was considered for Treasury secretary, a role that has been the focus of high-level jockeying in Trump’s world. At the same time, the Treasury’s position is closely watched in financial circles, where a disruptive nominee could have immediate negative effects on the stock market, which Trump watches closely.
The news came even as billionaire Elon Musk and others in Trump’s orbit called on Trump to dump former front-runner for Treasury Secretary Scott Besant in favor of Lutnick. “Bessant is a business-as-usual choice, while @howardlutnick will actually make a difference,” Musk said in his post.
Lutnick joined Cantor Fitzgerald in 1983 and became president and CEO in 1991.
Lutnick is the financial technology company BGC Group, Inc. and also heads the commercial real estate services firm Newmark Group, Inc.
Lutnick has donated to both Democrats and Republicans in the past, and once appeared on Trump’s NBC reality show, “The Apprentice.” He has become part of the president-elect’s inner circle, sharing the stage with Trump at events including a rally at Madison Square Garden in the final days of his campaign.
He came under fire in the final days of the campaign for an interview with CNN in which he repeated Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s criticism of vaccines.
