White House pulls CDC nominee because they didn’t have the votes: Sources

The White House on Thursday pulled President Donald Trump's nomination of Dr. David Weldon to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, multiple sources told ABC News.

The withdrawal came just before Weldon was to appear for his confirmation hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, where he was expected to be grilled on his past comments questioning vaccine safety. The room was all set for the hearing before the developments, which was first reported by Axios.

Weldon was pulled because he didn't have the votes to be confirmed, according to two sources familiar with his nomination. This was the first time a CDC director nominee had to be Senate-confirmed.

Weldon, a physician who served in Congress from 1995 until 2009, had kept a relatively low profile for years until being nominated by Trump in November.

But his skepticism of established science around vaccines made him a popular pick among allies of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the new secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

As recently as 2019, Weldon promoted the unsubstantiated theory that vaccines could cause autism.

In 2007, Weldon co-authored a "vaccine safety bill" with former Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney, which sought to give control over vaccine safety to an independent agency within HHS. The bill, which stalled in a House subcommittee, would "provide the independence necessary to ensure that vaccine safety research is robust, unbiased, free from conflict of interest criticism, and broadly accepted by the public at large," Weldon said in a press release announcing the bill.

Weldon was being considered as a measles outbreak sweeps across the U.S.

Democrat Sen. Patty Murray, former chair of the committee Weldon was going to testify before, said that he raised concerning anti-vaccine sentiment during their private meeting.

"In our meeting last month, I was deeply disturbed to hear Dr. Weldon repeat debunked claims about vaccines -- it's dangerous to put someone in charge at CDC who believes the lie that our rigorously tested childhood vaccine schedule is somehow exposing kids to toxic levels of mercury or causing autism," Murray said in a statement.

"As we face one of the worst measles outbreaks in years thanks to President Trump, a vaccine skeptic who spent years spreading lies about safe and proven vaccines should never have even been under consideration to lead the foremost agency charged with protecting public health," Murray added.

With sources telling ABC News that Weldon did not have the votes for confirmation, all eyes were on Sen. Bill Cassidy, the Republican committee chairman and a longtime physician who expressed reservations previously that the incoming administration would sow distrust in vaccinations.

A person familiar with the matter said Sen. Cassidy did not make any requests of the White House and did not tell people how he was going to vote on the matter.

"Cassidy was not part of this decision," the person said.

Efforts to reach Weldon directly for comment were not immediately successful.