President Donald Trump is wrestling with the second pandemic of his presidency as the CDC’s top minds drop like flies in resignations tied to Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s takeover of the agency.
The chaos has set America’s public health apparatus “on fire” and “the arsonist is RFK Jr.,” said Daily Beast podcast host Joanna Coles on Monday’s emergency episode of Inside Trump’s Head.
Co-host and Trump biographer Michael Wolff added, “I don’t think we should express surprise that Donald Trump would put any incompetent in any job. The administration is filled with them.”
Susan Monarez lasted less than a month as the first non-physician in 70 years to lead the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) as director before she “ran afoul” with Anti-vaxxer-in-Chief RFK Jr. and was fired last week.
Monarez’s lawyers said she “refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives,” and her exit has triggered at least four renowned doctors and agency officials to follow in her wake—with some of them releasing statements backing up Monarez’s claims.
“Recently, the overstating of risks [of vaccines] and the rise of misinformation have cost lives, as demonstrated by the highest number of U.S. measles cases in 30 years and the violent attack on our agency,” wrote CDC’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Debra Houry in a resignation letter reviewed by NBC News.
According to Wolff, the whole situation smacks of RFK Jr.’s wacky health views making the agency and its top officials sick.
According to Wolff, bitterness is at the center of RFK Jr.’s “wastrel life of drug abuse, womanizing, and domestic upheaval.”
“He’s very bitter about the fact that his bad behavior has prevented him from the power and the status he believed he was entitled to by his family name,” Wolff said, and it put him “basically in exile” in the Kennedy family as he “couldn’t have the career he thought he was entitled to.”
Then Trump opens pandora’s box by appointing RFK Jr. secretary of health and human services in a bid to win over the scion’s MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) base, explained Wolff, who alleges that Trump initially offered RFK Jr. the vice presidency as he strategized a ticket to beat the Democrats.
“At some point, RFK Jr. turns him down on this and Trump is very disappointed,” said Wolff. When RFK Jr. bows out of the race and moves his MAHA base to endorse Trump, Wolff suggested the president has been forced to “tolerate RFK Jr.” to keep the support.
“And I think you can read between the lines here on dismissing the head of the CDC,” Wolff told Coles. “I would say Trump is showing … I mean, [he] hasn’t come out in direct support of RFK Jr. on this, and he’s probably a little squeamish about it. But again, RFK Jr. represents that vax position that he has to subscribe to.”
As a result, “we have a man who had a brain worm, openly talked about having a worm eat part of his brain, running the Health and Human Services Ministry,” said Coles.
According to Wolff, it’s all setting RFK Jr. up for a 2028 presidential run—which he has vehemently denied that he would run.
“I certainly have no doubt in my mind running for president in 2028,” said Wolff. “And let’s realize the more he is antagonistic to the health establishment, the more that solidifies his MAGA base, the more you have a solid MAGA base, the more credible you will be as a Republican candidate.”
The Daily Beast has contacted RFK Jr.’s office and the White House for comment.
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung has previously described Wolff as “a sack of s–t” and said, “He routinely fabricates stories originating from his sick and warped imagination, only possible because he has a severe and debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted his peanut-sized brain.”
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