CDC Director Susan Monarez Fired Weeks After Being Sworn In

Susan Monarez, the Director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), has been fired just weeks after being sworn in.

The Details: The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on X that Monarez is "no longer director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention." On Wednesday night, her attorneys posted on X that she had not received notification from the White House that she had been fired and that she would not resign. According to The New York Times (Lean Left bias), Monarez had clashed with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over CDC vaccine policy changes and had tried to get Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) to intervene after Kennedy urged her to resign.

Key Quote: White House spokesman Kush Desai late on Wednesday said Monarez was not "aligned with the President's agenda of Making America Healthy Again." Since she had "refused to resign despite informing HHS leadership of her intent to do so, the White House has terminated Monarez from her position with the CDC," Desai said.

For Context: Monarez, who was confirmed by the Senate on July 29, had reportedly refused to resign. In addition to her firing, there have been a number of high-level departures at the CDC which has left the leadership there in limbo.

How the Media Covered It: The Washington Post (Lean Left) reported that Kennedy has long criticized the CDC as too deferential to vaccine makers and the pharmaceutical industry and that he has "upended vaccines policies," including narrowing the approval of coronavirus vaccines to high-risk groups on Wednesday. The New York Post (Lean Right) noted that Monarez’s departure comes on the same day Kennedy announced changes to coronavirus vaccine eligibility. Sources across the political spectrum noted that morale at the CDC had been low after a gunman opened fire on the agency's main campus in Atlanta on August 8.

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