Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gave an absolutely vexing answer to a basic question on why he fired Center for Disease Control and Prevention head Susan Monarez.
“Did you tell the head of the CDC that if she refused to sign off on your changes to the childhood vaccine schedule, that she had to resign?” asked Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, cutting off the shouting RFK Jr. was doing moments before.
“No, I told her that she had to resign ‘cuz I asked her, ‘Are you a trustworthy person?’ And she said ‘no.’”
“What?” Warren replied. Next to her Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders laughed and smiled in disbelief.
“So if you had an employee who told you they weren’t trustworthy, would you ask them to resign, senator?”
Warren: “Did you tell the head of the CDC…that she had to resign?”RFK: “No. She had to resign because I asked her ‘Are you a trustworthy person?’ and she said ‘No.’”Warren: “What?” pic.twitter.com/FlPrUKvjyG
— The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) September 4, 2025
On Thursday, Monarez published a piece in The Wall Street Journal accusing RFK Jr. of firing her for refusing to pre-approve the recommendations of his handpicked advisory panel.
But even the White House has admitted she was fired over a difference in opinion. Last week, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Monarez was fired because her views were “not aligned with [President Trump’s] mission.” That same day, former CDC director and Monarez confidant Richard Besser told the media that Monarez was fired because she had refused to capitulate to Kennedy’s MAHA agenda.
“She said that there were two things she would never do in the job,” Besser said. “She said she was asked to do both of those, one in terms of firing her leadership, who are talented civil servants like herself, and the other was to rubber stamp [vaccine] recommendations that flew in the face of science, and she was not going to do either of those things.”
Now RFK Jr. has dumbed the excuse all the way down to ‘she told me I shouldn’t trust her,” framing the situation as if Monarez was begging to be fired. It’s clear that Monarez—who has a PhD in microbiology and immunology—was not sufficiently committed to carrying out Trump and Kennedy’s massive destabilizing attacks on our health care and vaccine systems.
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