President Donald Trump’s new pick for surgeon general is a resounding win for the pro-life movement but might not be for the Make America Healthy Again movement. Trump tapped Fox News contributor Dr. Nicole B. Saphier to be his third nominee for U.S. surgeon general after withdrawing Dr. Casey Means’ nomination, which failed to get the support of the Senate. “I am pleased to announce that I am nominating Dr. Nicole B. Saphier to be the next SURGEON GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Nicole is a STAR physician who has spent her career guiding women facing breast cancer through their diagnosis and treatment while tirelessly advocating to increase early cancer detection and prevention, while at the same time working with men and women on all other forms of cancer diagnoses and treatments.” “She is also an INCREDIBLE COMMUNICATOR, who makes complicated health issues more easily understood by all Americans,” Trump added. Means, sister of MAHA advocate Calley Means, dealt with heavy pushback due to her stance on vaccines. But Saphier, who has less of a focus on vaccines, could be the key to Trump getting a surgeon general nomination through the Senate committee. I am so proud of Casey, and the way she conducted herself during this process. I am also proud to work for the Trump admin, who has marshaled the disruptive MAHA message and driven victories against dark forces personified by Bill Cassidy. At every step, Casey’s message of… pic.twitter.com/GcFOFLFmAN— Calley Means (@calleymeans) April 30, 2026 But Who is Dr. Saphier? Saphier is a voice for the pro-life movement with a personal witness. She got pregnant unexpectedly at 17 and was in a real position to choose abortion or life. She chose life. She and her son Hudson recently published a children’s book together, “That’s What Family Is For.” In an interview with The Conservateur, Saphier shared more about the decision to choose life and what it meant for her life. “Motherhood is the greatest blessing that this life has to offer and while we certainly do feel like maybe we’re doing a million things at once, and we probably are, but women are created that way. That’s why women are so good at multitasking. That’s why we’re so nurturing,” she said. In less than three decades, Dr. Nicole Saphier went from teen mom to surgeon general—loved this interview of her in @ConservateurMag. Truly no other country like this one. https://t.co/lsDJ2L079K pic.twitter.com/sbQ5iB1zL3— Neeraja Deshpande (@neerajadeshp) May 1, 2026 “When I found out I was pregnant at 17, it was a very lonely time. I felt very isolated, very fearful, and didn’t really know what the future had in store,” she shared. When asked how she found her faith, Saphier said, “I just remember feeling that after reading [my Bible] that nothing will be placed before me that I can’t overcome. … So while I may feel like I may be sinking into this lonely abyss, I’m not. … That gave me great comfort.” MAHA Is Unsure While the pro-life community is calling Saphier’s appoointment a win, leaders in the MAHA movement don’t seem as sure. Alex Clark, a Turning Point USA spokesperson and MAHA advocate, voiced her concerns about Saphier on social media shortly after the president announced her nomination. “Dr. Saphier would be a catastrophic mistake on messaging and communicating with MAHA at a time where the coalition is very fragile,” Clark wrote. “It will be perceived as the admin breaking another promise to them and embracing the status quo in health care that ended us smack dab in the middle of the chronic disease epidemic we now find ourselves in.” The new surgeon general nominee, @NBSaphierMD, may have a great pro-life testimony, but she gets an F when it comes to all things MAHA. Does the president realize that she completely trashed him and @SecKennedy on everything they’ve been doing concerning autism? She wrote an…— Alex Clark (@yoalexrapz) May 1, 2026 “My position isn’t to replace Dr. Saphier. It’s to completely DOGE the surgeon general role. If we don’t, we risk accelerating the loss of one of the most activated voting blocs the GOP is already watching slip away,” Clark concluded. Medical Credentials Saphier earned her medical degree as an international medical graduate at Ross University School of Medicine and completed fellowships at the Mayo Clinic. She is now a radiologist and the director of breast imaging at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center–Monmouth. Saphier is also the host of Wellness Unmasked, a health podcast, and the author of “Make America Healthy Again: How Bad Behavior and Big Government Caused a Trillion-Dollar Crisis.” She released her book in 2020, long before Robert F. Kennedy Jr. popularized the MAHA acronym during his 2024 presidential run.

Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones asked the Virginia Supreme Court to overturn a ruling by Judge Hurley in Tazewell that blocked the State Board of Elections from certifying the results of the April 21 redistricting referendum. That is notable—so is the justices’ denial of that motion. First, most anyone that remembers 2020 knows that the first response from anyone, when confronted with proof that shenanigans had taken place during the presidential election, is “the vote has been certified and there is no changing it.” That gets used to justify statements that the 2020 election was unchallenged. It appears that what the attorney general was trying to do was force the state Supreme Court’s hand by claiming that one district court didn’t have the standing to stop a whole state-wide certification. Jones also argued, with a straight face, that because the redistricting his party supported would eat into the time for candidates to know what district they were running for and if any primaries needed to take place. Any delay could be seen as “vote suppression.” Had he been successful, any ruling regarding the legality of the referendum would meet the same response the questions about 2020 meet: “So sorry, already certified.” That makes the second part of this compelling. The fact that the Virginia Supreme Court did not go along with the attorney general is being seen by tea-leaf readers as an indication that they will find that sufficient laws were broken that would render the whole vote moot. Then the fun begins. If you have not read the letter that the alleged assailant sent his family before trying to crash the White House Correspondents’ Dinner more than a week ago Saturday, the New York Post was the first to do so, and you should read it to get an idea of what might be coming to the streets of Virginia if the vote is thrown out. A continuously repeating loop based on unproven or debunked rhetoric about President Donald Trump led the assailant to travel across the country to attend the dinner. And there are many more like him. People that believe, in the words of the Trump assailant, “I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes,” and who are convinced extreme action needed to take place even without redistricting, can become dangerous extremists. Think of the Virginia riots in Richmond and Roanoke after George Floyd died in police custody. Should the redistricting referendum be ruled invalid, it would be their votes got tossed out. They won’t need a planted agitator to whip them up into an extreme frenzy. While the Virginia Supreme Court should not give in to the threat of extreme political violence, we need to be ready.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio will visit the Vatican and Italy this week, the state department confirmed Monday. The White House has publicly feuded with both states on foreign policy. In a statement, the State Department said Rubio will meet with “Holy See leadership to discuss the situation in the Middle East and mutual interests in the Western Hemisphere.” Pope Leo XIV has criticized both the United States and Iran’s role in the ongoing conflict. In turn, President Donald Trump responded, “I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.” Rubio will also meet with Italian officials for talks “focused on shared security interests and strategic alignment,” per the state department. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggested when asked by reporters Monday that she will likely meet with Rubio. Rubio’s trip to Europe comes as the administration is becoming increasingly critical of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) due to its members’ refusal to join in combat operations against Iran and secure the Strait of Hormuz. The administration has already announced its intent to withdraw 5,000 troops from Germany, a NATO member. Trump told reporters of the withdrawals on Saturday that “we’re going to cut way down. And we’re cutting a lot further than 5,000.” Trump also floated withdrawing American troops from Italy and Spain on Thursday, saying they have “not been of any help to us.”

President Donald Trump said the United States will come to the aid of ships stuck in the Strait of Hormuz due to security concerns. “For the good of Iran, the Middle East, and the United States, we have told these Countries that we will guide their Ships safely out of these restricted Waterways, so that they can freely and ably get on with their business,” Trump wrote Sunday on Truth Social. Trump said the tankers that the U.S. will guide are not involved with the war. “I have told my Representatives to inform them that we will use best efforts to get their Ships and Crews safely out of the Strait,” he wrote. “In all cases, they said they will not be returning until the area becomes safe for navigation, and everything else.” Trump named the process “Project Freedom,” and said it will begin Monday morning. “The Ship movement is merely meant to free up people, companies, and Countries that have done absolutely nothing wrong — They are victims of circumstance,” he said. “This is a Humanitarian gesture on behalf of the United States, Middle Eastern Countries but, in particular, the Country of Iran. Many of these Ships are running low on food, and everything else necessary for largescale crews to stay on board in a healthy and sanitary manner.” If Iran interferes with the project, it will be “dealt with forcefully,” he said. The Wall Street Journal reported that this is “effectively a coordination cell to move traffic through the Strait, involving countries, insurance companies and shipping organizations.” Naval warships will not be escorting vessels through the strait, officials told the outlet. As many as 20,000 seafarers have been stranded in the Persian Gulf on around 2,000 vessels, according to the International Maritime Organization.  Recently, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps deployed mines in the strait, endangering commercial shipping traffic. The blockage of the strait has led to rising oil prices across the world, as before the conflict, about 20% of the world’s oil supply passed through the waterway. Iran warned the U.S. Navy to stay out of the Strait of Hormuz and said commercial vessels would need to coordinate any passage with its military. It also issued a new map outlining what it said was Iran’s control area. Reuters contributed to this report.

On Saturday, Aug. 12, 2017, two state troopers—pilot Lt. H. Jay Cullen, 48, and trooper-pilot Berke M.M. Bates, 40—and one counterprotester, 32-year-old Heather Heyer, lost their lives in Charlottesville, Virginia. Hundreds more were injured in the aftermath of dueling rallies. One rally took place in a park at the corner of Market and Fourth streets in Charlottesville, and the other occurred on Market Street, in protest of the first. In February of that year, I became aware of a group that espoused no conservative principles beyond wanting then Charlottesville Vice Mayor Wes Bellamy to lose his seat. I even had several heated discussions with the organizer of the so-called “Unite the Right” rally because he thought I was infringing his First Amendment rights by not hosting him on my popular morning radio show. That Saturday morning in August, while I stood in the crowd in the intersection trying to feed news back to my station, I watched David Duke walk past me. Yes, that David Duke. I was about to become aware of what tear gas feels like, but it was OK because I felt vindicated. This was no bunch of true conservatives. Now we learn that a person identified as “F-37” by the Department of Justice in their indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) was the “transportation coordinator” for the “Unite the Right” team. SPLC claims they were paid $270,000 to “sing” (as police call testifying against your co-conspirators) or were they “composing” (when there was no song to “sing”). A researcher called “Data Republican” from Pennsylvania has posts from the website Discord, attributed to the transportation coordinator, warning of crowds that might try to block the streets. And if that were to happen, the message was to “run them down.” The indictment states these postings were made “under the supervision of the SPLC.” Tuesday, lawyers for the Southern Poverty Law Center claimed that “the government was aware of their activities.” Since this was a criminal style sting operation, the logical conclusion would be that the FBI might be involved. At the time the rally took place, the newly named FBI director was Christopher Wray. From May until then, the acting director was Andrew McCabe. And as the “Unite the Right” folks were building their team in the spring of that year, it was a fellow named James Comey. Those folks would never be involved in setting up anything that would make President Donald Trump look bad, would they?