Donald Trump fired his new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) when she resisted pressure to change COVID-19 jab policy after a bombshell Daily Beast report that the government may be planning to yank the vaccine from the market altogether.
The explosive showdown reportedly began on Monday, just hours after the Daily Beast quoted a Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ally stating that the administration would pull COVID mRNA vaccines “within months.”
The Health Secretary is said to have demanded that the newly confirmed CDC head, Susan Monarez, back his vaccine policies and purge those who refused—or else.
Monarez, who had only been confirmed for the post in late July, had reportedly been pressed by Kennedy and senior officials on whether she’d support rescinding certain COVID-19 vaccine approvals and firing key CDC leaders.
However, the eminent microbiologist was having none of it, and by Wednesday evening, HHS announced she was out, in a series of events reported by the Washington Post.
Monarez, 50, had refused to “rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives,” her attorneys Mark S. Zaid and Abbe Lowell said, arguing she “chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda.”
They added that only the president can fire a Senate-confirmed director, and accused RfK Jr. of “weaponizing public health for political gain.”
Soon after, the White House said it had formally terminated her, insisting she wasn’t “aligned with the President’s agenda of Making America Healthy Again.”
The firing capped days of escalating pressure tied to the vaccine fight. Monarez was said to have sought time to consult advisers and even enlisted Bill Cassidy, chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee, who’d backed Kennedy’s confirmation after extracting vaccine protections. That enraged Kennedy, according to the Post’s sources.
Monarez’s firing then triggered a cascade of resignations.
Demetre Daskalakis—CDC’s top respiratory-illness and immunization official—posted a blistering letter warning Kennedy’s moves “threaten the lives of the youngest Americans and pregnant people,” blasting reliance on “unvetted and conflicted outside organizations.”
Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry said “ongoing changes” made it impossible to continue and reminded staff: “Vaccines save lives—this is an indisputable, well-established, scientific fact.”
Veteran infectious-disease leader Dan Jernigan also quit, while Jennifer Layden, a top CDC data official, is departing the agency after five years, per Politico.
Kennedy has already remade federal vaccine policy—firing the entire ACIP advisory panel, slashing mRNA funding, and narrowing COVID-19 shot recommendations to high-risk groups—moves celebrated by his allies.
While Monarez’s lawyers maintain she remains CDC director until the president personally fires her, the White House says she’s gone.
White House Spokesman Kush Desai told the Beast: “As her attorney’s statement makes abundantly clear, Susan Monarez is not aligned with the President’s agenda of Making America Healthy Again.
“Since Susan Monarez 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.”
The agency now faces a leadership vacuum—on top of budget cuts, staff turmoil, and the Aug. 8 gun attack at CDC’s Atlanta campus that officials tied to vaccine misinformation.
Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a leading adviser to the controversial lobby group Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Action, told the Daily Beast that Kennedy’s vaccine skepticism was shared by “influential” members of the Trump family and that vaccine policy was set to change in the near future.
Malhotra said many of the advisers closest to RFK Jr. told him that they “cannot understand” why the vaccine is still being prescribed. They claim that a decision to remove the vaccine from the U.S. market will come “within months.”
“It could [happen] in a number of stages, including learning more about the data,” Malhotra told the Daily Beast. “But given the increased talk of vaccine injuries in the past few weeks among the administration, it could also come with one clean decision.”
The Daily Beast contacted the HHS and CDC for comment and attempted to reach out to Monarez, Daskalakis, Houry, Jernigan, and Layden.
The post Trump Axed CDC Boss After Daily Beast COVID Vaccine Bombshell appeared first on The Daily Beast.
