Overview

• White House spokesperson Karolinea Leavitt said Monarez was removed because she was not aligned with President Trump’s mission to make America healthy again.
• Monarez’s attorneys, Mark Zaid and Abbe Lowell, said she neither resigned nor was told she was fired and argue she was targeted for refusing to approve what they call reckless orders and for declining to dismiss experienced staff.
• CNN, citing anonymous sources, reported that HHS staff close to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., including aide Stefanie Spear, pressed Monarez for days to fire three senior CDC leaders before her ouster.
• Several top officials resigned soon after, and no interim director had been named, leaving the CDC without clear leadership following the shortest directorship in the agency’s history.
• The leadership turmoil follows Kennedy’s earlier removal of all 17 ACIP members and cuts of roughly $500 million for mRNA vaccine development, while the Aug. 8 shooting at CDC headquarters has intensified employee safety concerns.