Donald Trump’s surgeon general pick not only expressed pro-abortion views in the past, but she was also an enthusiastic supporter of disastrous COVID-19 lockdown and vaccine policies — and censorship of all those who disagreed with her.
As a reminder of how much of an impact the surgeon general can (though he shouldn’t) have on Americans’ free speech, Biden’s Surgeon General Vivek Murthy was such a significant player in the government-Big Tech censorship industrial complex; he was so thoroughly implicated in the crushing of any COVID dissent, that the landmark free speech lawsuit against the federal government bears his name: Murthy v. Missouri. But Trump’s pick Dr. Janette Nesheiwat seems likely to be just as dangerous to our First Amendment rights, based on her previous comments praising COVID censorship and urging Big Tech for more. “It’s about time that they are taking action,” she said of Facebook censors.
Yes, that’s right. After promising over and over to protect free speech, Trump has nominated a doctor for surgeon general who couldn’t get enough of censorship during the pandemic. As someone who supports Trump but most of all hopes to see a restoration of American liberties, I find this deeply troubling. Not only is this disturbing in and of itself, since free speech is a sacred American right, but many of the censored individuals were stating opinions that also later turned out to be facts, such as the dangers of masking and rushed vaccine rollouts.
Speaking on Fox Business during the height of COVID hysteria, Nesheiwat praised Facebook’s plan to censor free speech with boundless enthusiasm, “First of all, vaccines save lives, and I am so excited, and I thank and I commend Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg for taking action, because this affects everyone,” Nesheiwat gushed.
Trump's pick for Surgeon General, Janette Nesheiwat, praised Facebook for censoring anti-vaccine information, adding that she will "hope and pray" other social media companies do the same. pic.twitter.com/Zqpz6ktLWs
— TechJudge (@techjudge) November 23, 2024
She passionately rambled, “This affects our children. It affects adults… look at the recent measles outbreak, the biggest outbreak that we've had in decades, with measles, and that's no joke. Measles can cause brain inflammation and pneumonia and ear infections and hearing loss and death. So it's about time that they are taking action, and I hope and pray that other social media platforms will follow suit and do the same thing.”
And in 2021, Nesheiwat tweeted in response to a post touting Joe Biden’s vaccine push, blathering about the importance of “eliminating Vaccine Hesitancy and misinformation.” The next year, she criticized censorship, but her belated statement sounded insincere and unreliable.
It’s not a matter of distribution, it’s a matter of eliminating Vaccine Hesitancy & misinformation. We’re at 1/3 fully vaxxed we need more@
— Dr Janette Nesheiwat (@DoctorJanette) May 10, 2021
To which I respond in the words of Ben Franklin, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” And those of us who suffered through the hell of Covid lockdowns, whose family members died alone, whose loved ones contracted vaccine injuries, whose online voices were silenced, whose children were isolated and educationally delayed, who lost jobs and businesses and scholarships, we deserve much better than this anti-free speech petty tyrant for surgeon general.
Related: Dangerous: Radical Randi Weingarten Thrilled at Trump’s Labor Pick
Nesheiwat, in fact, sounded in the above clip just like Murthy. In 2022, while demanding Big Tech turn over data on alleged “misinformation,” current Surgeon General Murthy pontificated, “This is about protecting the nation’s health.” Back in 2021, he declared “misinformation” (i.e., speech he doesn’t like) a “serious threat to public health,” demanding that Americans “help slow the spread of health misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.”
Again, Nesheiwat is seriously problematic on multiple levels, from her past opposition to pro-life laws to her blind support of Big Pharma. But in terms of her comments on free speech, she sounds particularly and terrifyingly similar to the current anti-constitutional stooge Murthy. Has she changed her views since? How can we be sure she’s honest now? Is she a flip-flopper like Kamala Harris? Why would Trump choose someone who seems to switch her views based on the political climate and who has expressed such blatantly un-American opinions?
