The White House is considering Buddy Carter of Georgia to be the next commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, a move that would mark a sharp turn in its search for the agency’s top job. Carter is not alone: Heidi Overton and Jeff Vacirca are also being considered.
The timing matters because the Food and Drug Administration has been without a permanent commissioner since Marty Makary resigned in April, and the search has dragged long enough to leave room for a darker horse to surface. Choosing Carter would be a pivot for the White House, because his name had not appeared on previously reported short lists for the post.
Carter brings a background the White House has not been said to favor in the same way with the other names. He is a licensed pharmacist who owned Carter’s Pharmacy for more than three decades, and his license is still active, according to the Georgia Department of Community Health. That experience could fit neatly with a post that oversees drugs, devices and other health regulation, even as the White House has spent more than a month weighing other people recommended by the Department of Health and Human Services.
The politics around Carter also cut in more than one direction. Donald Trump declined to endorse Carter, or anyone else, in the May GOP primary for Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff’s seat, then issued a last-minute endorsement in the runoff for Mike Collins, who went on to win the nomination. Carter lost that race and is leaving Congress at the end of the year, which makes the FDA job a possible next landing spot for a lawmaker who is already in transition.
Carter has tried to align himself with the administration’s health agenda. He has said he believes routine childhood vaccines are safe and effective, while also backing Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s shifts in federal vaccine guidance and stressing his opposition to government vaccine requirements. He also defended the administration’s firing of Susan Monarez in a post on X, a signal that he is willing to lean into the administration’s more combative posture.
That still does not make a nomination likely. Kush Desai said President Trump will continue to nominate the best and brightest minds to deliver on his historic MAHA agenda, but added that discussion of possible picks should be treated as speculation unless Trump announces one himself. For now, the question is not whether Carter is in the mix; it is whether the White House turns a late-stage consideration into a formal nomination, or keeps searching until another name becomes the one Trump is willing to put forward.
