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White House Says Cdc Director Is Fired Agency Leaders Resign

Bonisiwe Shabane
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white house says cdc director is fired agency leaders resign

Lawyers for the fired Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director, Susan Monarez, say she was targeted for standing up for science and are challenging the legality of her termination. (AP Video: Nathan Ellgren) Susan Monarez, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, arrives to testify before the Senate HELP Committee, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, June 25, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, file) NEW YORK (AP) — The director of the nation’s top public health agency has been fired after less than one month in the job, and several top agency leaders have resigned.

Susan Monarez isn’t “aligned with” President Donald Trump’s agenda and refused to resign, so the White House terminated her, spokesman Kush Desai said Wednesday night. Her lawyers said she was targeted for standing up for science. The White House says CDC Director Susan Monarez was fired because she was not aligned with President Trump's mission to make America healthy again. What does the exodus mean for the agency? And now to a portrait of an agency in apparent freefall. I would tell you who's in charge today at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta if we knew.

To recap, Susan Monarez had just been confirmed as director at the end of July. Yesterday on X, the Department of Health and Human Services posted that she is no longer in charge. Monarez said, not so fast, that she would not resign, that only the president has the power to fire her, which White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt says he has done. And then late this afternoon, we learned that Health and Human Services Deputy Secretary Jim O'Neill will be named interim director of the CDC. That's according to an administration official not authorized to discuss the decision. Well earlier today, I spoke with someone who knows well the challenges of running the CDC - Dr.

Tom Frieden. He was director there during the Obama administration. And I asked him is it clear to him who's in charge? TOM FRIEDEN: No, it is not. This is unprecedented. There has, in the 80-year history of the CDC, never been a director fired and never had a situation like this where you have essentially a purge, where much of the top leadership leaves...

The CDC works 24/7 to protect Americans from threats. And when the top leaders who have been there through Democratic and Republican administrations for decades, leave, we are all less safe. KELLY: You've just pointed out that it is not just Susan Monarez as director who appears to have exited the CDC in the last 24 hours. We know of four other senior leaders who have left, including the CDC's chief medical officer, including the director of the Center on Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. What are you hearing from Atlanta headquarters today? The White House announced late on Wednesday it fired Susan Monarez, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, hours after her lawyers issued a combative statement disputing her removal by the...

Earlier on Wednesday, the HHS said Monarez is “no longer” the CDC’s director, thanking her for her “dedicated service to the American people.” Mark S. Zaid, an attorney for Monarez, said in a statement she “has neither resigned nor received notification from the White House that she has been fired.” Zaid alleged Monarez “refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts she chose” to protect “the public over serving a political agenda,” adding Monarez was “targeted” for her actions. The White House officially announced Monarez’s firing shortly after the lawyer’s statement and White House spokesperson Kush Desai told various outlets: “As her attorney’s statement makes abundantly clear, Susan Monarez is not aligned with... Jim O'Neill, a top deputy to Health Secretary Robert F

The Latest: RFK Jr. Adviser Will Serve as Acting CDC Leader After Director’s Firing, AP Source Says FILE - Susan Monarez, President Donald Trump's nominee to be director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, arrives to testify before the Senate HELP Committee, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, June... (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, file) Jim O’Neill, a top deputy to Health Secretary Robert F.

Kennedy Jr., will serve as acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to an administration official who requested anonymity to discuss a personnel change that has not been formally announced. The director of the nation’s top public health agency, Susan Monarez, was fired by President Donald Trump late Wednesday because she wasn’t “aligned with the president’s mission” and refused to resign, according to the... Monarez’s lawyers said she was targeted for standing up for science. The Trump administration asked a military base outside Chicago for support on immigration operations this week, offering a clue of what an expanded law enforcement crackdown might look like in the nation’s third-largest city. The Department of Homeland Security asked Naval Station Great Lakes for “limited support in the form of facilities, infrastructure, and other logistical needs to support DHS operations,” Matt Mogle, spokesperson for the base 35... The request came weeks after the Republican administration deployed National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., to target crime, immigration and homelessness, and two months after it sent troops to Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook has sued the Trump administration in an effort to overturn the president’s attempt to fire her, launching an unprecedented legal battle that could significantly reshape the Fed’s longstanding... Chicago prepares for possible military deployment as details remain scarce Reporting by Dan Levine in San Francisco, Ahmed Aboulenein and Leah Douglas in Washington; Michael Erman in New York and Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago; Additional reporting by Jasper Ward and Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington;... Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab Washington-based correspondent covering U.S. healthcare and pharmaceutical policy with a focus on the Department of Health and Human Services and the agencies it oversees such as the Food and Drug Administration, previously based in Iraq and Egypt.

The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was fired for not aligning with the president's goals, the White House said. Susan Monarez's lawyers say she was targeted for standing up for science. The director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Susan Monarez, has been dismissed less than one month into her job amid other high-profile resignations over vaccine policies and health directives, according... "Susan Monarez is no longer director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention. We thank her for her dedicated service to the American people," HHS said. The post did not provide a reason for her early departure.

White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in an email statement to the media that Monarez had been dismissed. "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 statement said, adding that Monarez...

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