Michael R. Caputo, a cancer survivor and a Republican political operative with a wide-ranging resume, was named to the President’s Cancer Panel, a board formed under the National Cancer Act to monitor the National Cancer Program and report to the president about “barriers to progress in reducing the burden of cancer.”
Some view the board as a unique authority of the 1971 law that established the National Cancer Program, while othersview it as ineffective, but those who like the board and those who dismiss it as a quaint anachronism agree on one point: the board and its members can do a lot of good (or, conceivably, harm) if they have access to the White House (The Cancer Letter, June 11, 2010).
Access is something Caputo appears to have.
“This is a panel that, if it truly advises the president, can impact progress against cancer,” Caputo said to The Cancer Letter. “In discussions of this opportunity with the White House, they encouraged me to help make sure that the President’s Cancer Panel is engaged with the president.”
Caputo talks about the president’s concern for him as he was going through cancer treatment, also noting that he is not the only cancer survivor with access to the Oval Office.
“Susie Wiles is the first chief of staff in modern times to have worked through cancer without skipping a beat. As a cancer survivor, I know our shared experience gives hope for true engagement with the White House,” he said.
In a recent article in USA Today, Wiles described her experience of working through initial treatment of cancer. “Chemotherapy tested me in ways I could never have anticipated. The next stage will require a serious commitment to rebuilding what treatment took from me,” Wiles wrote.
“But rebuilding is a challenge I welcome, because it reminds me that I have come through the hardest part.”
Caputo said that Wiles’s experience mirrors his own. “The changes survivors like me need to see will require robust research funding,” he said.
Caputo’s Wikipedia page makes for good reading, with appearances by Roger Stone, Donald Trump, Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin, RFK Jr., and Edward R. Martin Jr., Trump’s would-be U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.
There is a lot to scroll through, but here is a scene no amount of scrolling will turn up:
It’s Sept. 10, 2020, end of the day.
The setting: Caputo’s office, on the sixth floor of the Hubert H. Humphrey Building, the brutalist architectural gem located at the base of Capitol Hill.
Government-issue sofa, chairs.
Caputo keeps a hotplate and an espresso pot in his office, to give visitors a late-night caffeine jolt. This is at the height of COVID—tempers are hot, hours long.
Robert R. Redfield III, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, drops by to discuss something or other. COVID is killing thousands of people each day, and most of the official information, plus some of the leaks, flow through Caputo’s office.
As all sit down to sip their coffee, the phone rings. Without getting up, Caputo turns his head, sees that there is no caller ID and is about to turn back to Redfield.
“I turned my head. And because I was fat, 300 pounds give or take, it made the lymph node on the turning side poke out,” Caputo recalls.
Before Caputo turns back to face him, Redfield reaches out, pokes him in the neck, and briefly palpates the bump.
They looked at it, and they immediately took it out, the lymph node. I grew up in a trailer park. My family’s a farm family, too. I got the health care of a sultan. Not only did I get the NIH surgeon-in-chief and the head of the NCI on my surgery, but they went ahead and just took out the lymph node.
Michael Caputo
“Michael, that’s your lymph node. It’s the size of a golf ball. It’s hard as a rock. This can indicate many different things, but one of them is cancer, and you gotta go right now,” Redfield says.
Next, Caputo is tossed into the HHS Secretary’s car and, traveling through deserted streets of COVID-cautious Washington, quickly arrives at NIH Building 10, where he is met by NCI Director Ned Sharpless and Jeremy L. Davis, surgeon-in-chief of the NIH Clinical Center.
“They looked at the lymph node, and they immediately took it out,” Caputo recalls. “I grew up in a trailer park. My family’s a farm family, too. Fifty years later, I got the health care of a sultan. Not only did I get the NIH surgeon-in-chief and the head of the NCI on my surgery, but they went ahead and just took out the lymph node.
“As I was leaving, I said, ‘Okay, I guess I’ll hear from you guys in a couple days,’ and they laughed, and they said, ‘No, you’ll hear from us tonight.’”
He did.
What he heard wasn’t great.
It was squamous head-and-neck cancer, likely stage 2.
The timing stunk, too. Cancer care all over the U.S. was crippled because of COVID. The clinical center would be able to see him in the near future, but not right away. However, Roswell Park, in Buffalo, where Caputo’s wife and his two daughters were quarantining, would be able to start treatment right away.
“So, the next morning, I woke up and drove home,” Caputo said.
Caputo is grateful to the team that treated him at Roswell Park. “I actually became interested in cancer care just by watching the professionals at Roswell. They are just very cool people,” Caputo said.
The treatment took nearly four months, and it was rough. There was surgery, chemotherapy, radiation.
“The reason I lost so much weight is because I couldn’t swallow,” said Caputo, who now weighs about 180 pounds. Losing so much weight so fast made him hallucinate.
In January 2021, Caputo got good news. There was no evidence of disease. “They told me, ‘We didn’t see it in your brain. Initially, we were concerned, because it was in your lymph node, that it would end up there. But it’s not. And so, you’re fine. You’re cancer-free. Go ring the bell.’”
Treatment has left him with 10 decibel tinnitus and made him more vulnerable to infections.
“My cancer diagnosis, treatment and recovery, have been a topic of conversation among my friends in Trump world for a while,” Caputo said. “I started working on the Trump campaign in 2023. I was so grateful Susie Wiles came to me as soon as I was able to work, to put me on the team and get me back in the game.
“So, we talked about my cancer through my onboarding, we discussed it during the campaign where I worked on health policy, among others. And of course, I brought it up at innumerable meetings, even during the policy platform events at the convention in Milwaukee.
My cancer diagnosis and treatment and recovery have been a topic of conversation among my friends in the Trump White House for a while. I worked on the Trump campaign in 2024. And in fact, Susie Wiles came to me as soon as I was able to work, to put me on the campaign. And so, my cancer was discussed in my onboarding, discussed during the campaign. I was doing health policy, among others.
Michael Caputo
“I’ve been blessed with colleagues who are keenly interested in my cancer battle, and it’s not over,” he said. “My cancer is gone, but Susie said it best: now I have to rebuild what treatment took from me.”
Caputo first met Wiles in 1985, when Wiles worked in the communications office for Rep. Jack Kemp (R-NY) and Caputo was an intern at Kemp’s district office in Buffalo.
He first met Trump at the 1988 Republican convention in New Orleans.
Since Kemp had flamed out first as a candidate, and later as a running mate for George H.W. Bush, Caputo, then 26, joined the motor pool, as a driver.
“My first assignment was Roger Stone and his client, businessman Donald Trump,” said Caputo.
Stone had met Caputo before.
“He saw me there, in the motor pool, and he shouted, ‘Hey, Caputo, you take us.’ And my first time driving him and Roger, Trump said, ‘This politics stuff is crazy.’ And Roger said, ‘You should run for office.’ He said, ‘What?’ And Roger said, ‘President,’ and Trump laughed and laughed.”
For years after that, Caputo’s interactions with Trump were mediated by Stone. This included Stone preparing Trump to run for governor of New York in 2014. And, in 2016, Caputo was asked to join Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Caputo’s first gig in Trump’s second administration was that of a senior counselor to Martin, who failed to get through confirmation as the U.S. Attorney in Washington.
“When Ed Martin was turned down for confirmation, I went home, because I wasn’t feeling well. And White House personnel asked me what I wanted to do. After discussions with my family, I decided that what I wanted to do for the administration was work on cancer policy, because of what my family has endured,” Caputo said.
Initially, he asked to serve on the National Cancer Advisory Board. “And then, one day, out of the blue, they came to me and said, ‘What about the President’s Cancer Panel?’ That was an easy answer! ”
Caputo has moved to Florida, where in addition to studying theology at Ave Maria University, he has been doing public relations consulting for several clients, including helping City of Hope National Medical Center in its effort to spearhead studies on the role of the microbiome in cancer.
Last June, he worked with City of Hope to organize a workshop on the role of the microbiome in cancer.
They asked me what I wanted to do. And I, after discussions with my family, I decided that what I wanted to do for the administration was work on cancer policy, because of what I and my family has endured.
Michael Caputo
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. showed up, and NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya addressed the gathering remotely (The Cancer Letter, May 22, 2026).
The President’s Cancer Panel, too, has been focused on the microbiome.
“The White House is already looking for input on the microbiome and will be keenly interested in the panel’s results,” Caputo said.
Caputo said he and Wiles share a concern for long-term effects of chemotherapy.
“I suffer a lot of downstream impacts from the treatments that saved my life, and I have talked with more than a hundred cancer survivors who tell me of their own stories of survivorship,” Caputo said. “I hope to bring their stories to the President via his panel.”
NCI is one of a few organizations that have the capacity to conduct studies that have the potential to improve the wellbeing of cancer survivors. The sponsors of on-patent drugs have few incentives to experiment with lowering the dosage at which their products are administered. It’s even less likely that any for-profit entity would embark on a study aimed at de-escalating off-patent therapies such as the platinum drugs that injured Caputo. The studies of the microbiome, too, are moving slowly in part because there is not much money to be made in dietary interventions.
“There is a clear gap in the National Cancer Program: we cure or control the cancer, but leave many patients with lifelong, debilitating quality-of-life harm,” he said. “I am one, and I believe the President’s Cancer Panel is uniquely positioned to highlight this issue and drive change.”
Caputo replaces Mitchel S. Berger, director of the UCSF Brain Tumor Center, who recently rotated off the panel.
Other members are:
- Harvey Risch (Chair), professor emeritus and senior research scientist in epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health and Yale School of Medicine.
- Carol L. Brown, senior vice president, chief health equity officer, and Nicholls-Biondi Chair for Health Equity at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
