Trump Fires CDC Director Who Clashed With RFK Jr. Over Vaccine Policy

U.S. | Family & Society

3 hours ago

Originally posted by: Children's Health Defense

U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said today on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends,” reported by The Hill, that he is “not surprised” by the upheaval at the CDC following yesterday’s firing of the agency’s director.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) “is in trouble, and we need to fix it — and we are fixing it — and it may be that some people should not be working there anymore,” Kennedy said.

The White House confirmed late Wednesday that CDC Director Susan Monarez was fired after Kennedy tried to force her resignation and she refused to leave, The New York Times reported.

Four other CDC officials then resigned, citing their frustration with Kennedy’s leadership.

Monarez, confirmed by the U.S. Senate less than a month ago, reportedly clashed with Kennedy over changes in vaccine policy, according to The Washington Post, which first broke the story.

The agency needs “strong leadership” that will “be able to execute on President Trump’s broad ambitions,” Kennedy told Fox News.

Kennedy also said the CDC has placed too great an emphasis on water fluoridation, vaccines and abortion.

In an interview on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” this morning, Children’s Health Defense CEO Mary Holland said the Monarez conflict marked a “threshold moment,” especially given the pharma-backed mainstream response to recent moves at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that demonstrate the battle over vaccine policy is heating up.

In a statement, Holland also said:

“What is clear from the past 24 hours is that there was a lack of alignment between the CDC director and the administration. From what we know, director Monarez did not want to implement the president’s and secretary’s agenda, and, as expected when a political appointee does not follow the administration they serve, she was dismissed. Her termination, along with the resignations of the others, is a liberation for the CDC.

“The agency’s mission is to serve the public, but for the last two decades, it has served the pharmaceutical industry at the expense of public health. We are hopeful that the new leadership chosen by Secretary Kennedy and the president will return the agency to its original mission and restore the public’s trust.”

Former Biden administration CDC officials, including Dr. Mandy Cohen, who last ran the agency, lamented the news of the top officials’ departures, saying it would weaken the CDC.

In a post on X, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee and a strong pro-vaccine advocate, said the latest shake-up “will require oversight” by the committee.

Dismissal came after days-long standoff between Kennedy, Monarez

HHS announced on X Wednesday afternoon that Monarez had been removed from her

position.

The agency thanked Monarez for “her dedicated service to the American people.” It also said Kennedy “has full confidence in his team at @CDCgov who will continue to be vigilant in protecting Americans against infectious diseases at home and abroad.”

Susan Monarez is no longer director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We thank her for her dedicated service to the American people. @SecKennedy has full confidence in his team at @CDCgov who will continue to be vigilant in protecting Americans against infectious…

— HHS.gov (@HHSGov) August 27, 2025

Hours later, Monarez’s lawyers responded. They said Monarez had not resigned or been fired. They also challenged Kennedy’s authority to remove her because she had been confirmed by the Senate and served at the discretion of the president.

The lawyers said Kennedy was “weaponizing public health for political gain and putting millions of American lives at risk.”

Monarez’s attorneys are Mark Zaid, whose security clearance was revoked by Trump, and Abbe Lowell, who represented Hunter Biden and Lisa Cook, the Federal Reserve board member in Trump’s crosshairs.

The Times quoted an unnamed official who said Kennedy asked Monarez to resign on Monday. When she refused, he demanded she remove the agency’s top leadership by the end of the week, according to the Times.

Monarez reportedly appealed to Cassidy for intervention. Cassidy had cast a key vote in Kennedy’s confirmation after receiving Kennedy’s assurance that he would not dismantle the nation’s vaccine safety systems.

The White House confirmed late Wednesday that Monarez was fired because she is “not aligned with the president’s agenda of Making America Healthy Again.”

The four other senior officials who subsequently resigned are the director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Disease and Biden administration mpox czar Dr. Demetre Daskalakis; Dr. Debra Houry, deputy director and chief medical officer of the CDC; Dr. Daniel Jernigan, director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases who had been involved with the agency’s anthrax, swine flu and COVID-19 responses; and Dr. Jennifer Layden, who led the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology.

The Times reported that emails to colleagues about their resignations echoed the accusations made by Monarez’s lawyers.

Monarez defended mRNA vaccines as ‘safe and with demonstrated efficacy’

In March, Trump nominated Monarez for director of the CDC, where she had served as acting director until her nomination.

Monarez was the first CDC director confirmed under a law passed in 2023 that requires Senate confirmation for the position. She was also the first person, in more than 70 years, without a medical degree to serve in the role.

Trump nominated Monarez after withdrawing the nomination of Dr. Dave Weldon, who reportedly failed to secure enough votes because of comments he made suggesting a possible link between autism and vaccines.

Monarez, a biosecurity veteran, was previously deputy director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), an agency within HHS created by the Biden administration to accelerate “high-risk, high-reward” biomedical research.

ARPA-H is modeled after the U.S. military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Monarez also previously held positions with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

During her confirmation hearing before the Senate committee last month, Monarez affirmed her belief that “vaccines save lives,” and pledged to prioritize vaccine availability. She said mRNA vaccines are “safe and with demonstrated efficacy,” and she said she was unaware of any confirmed scientific link between vaccines and autism.

HHS did not respond to a request for comment.

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Kennedy’s autism and vaccine announcements made news this week

On Wednesday, Kennedy announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration revoked the emergency use authorization for the COVID-19 mRNA shots, but also authorized the shots for people ages 6 months and older at higher risk for illness from COVID-19.

On Tuesday, Kennedy said during a Trump administration Cabinet meeting that his agency is on track to announce the findings of an ongoing study on the causes of autism next month.

“We’re finding interventions, certain interventions now that are clearly almost certainly causing autism, and we’re going to be able to address those in September,” Kennedy said.

Last week, HHS sent a letter warning West Virginia that it could lose $1.37 billion in federal health funding if the state’s health departments don’t follow laws recognizing religious freedom — including religious exemptions to childhood vaccination.

Also last week, the heads of public health departments from every New England state except New Hampshire, along with health officials in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, attended a two-day meeting in Providence, Rhode Island, to discuss coordinating their own vaccine recommendations to circumvent recent and possible future changes made by federal public health agencies.

Earlier this month, two doctors who lost their medical licenses because they questioned the CDC’s vaccine recommendations for children filed a landmark lawsuit against the agency for failing to test the cumulative effect of the 72-dose schedule on children’s health.

Holland said that it was unclear whether an acting director will be named.

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