Susan Monarez is reportedly being pushed out for not supporting RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine agenda.
The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Susan Monarez, was reportedly fired on Wednesday after she resisted changes to covid-19 vaccine policies, according to the . But her lawyer says she hasn’t been officially notified of the termination, throwing a curveball into an already chaotic news cycle at the CDC.
“When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts, she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda,” attorney Mark Zaid posted to Bluesky on Wednesday night. “For that, she has been targeted.”
“Dr. Monarez has neither resigned nor received notification from the White House that she has been fired, and as a person of integrity and devoted to science, she will not resign,” Zaid continued.
Monarez was confirmed by the U.S. Senate just four weeks ago. After news broke of her ouster (whether it’s real or just imagined by the Trump regime), several other top officials at the federal health agency announced they were resigning, including the Chief Medical Officer.
Monarez was “pressed for days” by Trump regime lawyers and Robert F. Kennedy, Secretary of Health and Human Services, to rescind certain approvals for covid vaccines, according to the Post. Kennedy personally asked Monarez whether she was “aligned with the administration’s efforts to change vaccine policy,” and it seems like we can guess that she wasn’t.
Kennedy reportedly asked Monarez to resign for not supporting “President Trump’s agenda,” but she declined and even sought support from Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican from Louisiana, who has received criticism for not pushing back harder against Trump’s anti-science crusaders like Kennedy. Cassidy is a physician and has been seen as one of the few Republicans in a position to stop zealots in the Trump regime who are pushing anti-vaccine policies.
Monarez had testified during her confirmation hearing that she didn’t see any link between vaccines and autism, something that puts her at odds with Kennedy’s worldview and the so-called Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement.
