New CDC director is fired, Trump administration says

Susan Monarez, the CDC director, appears during her Senate confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 25, 2025. Monarez, who just weeks ago became director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has abruptly left her job after a tumultuous month that included dramatic shifts in vaccine policy and layoffs of the agency’s work force. (Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times)

By Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Apoorva Mandavilli and Christina Jewett

The White House said late Wednesday that it had fired Susan Monarez, the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, after a tense confrontation in which Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tried to remove her from her position and she refused to resign.

Monarez, an infectious disease researcher, was sworn in just a month ago by Kennedy, but had clashed with the secretary over vaccine policy, people familiar with the events said. Four other high-profile CDC officials quit en masse, apparently in frustration over vaccine policy and Kennedy’s leadership.

Because Monarez had been confirmed by the Senate — previous CDC directors were not subject to such confirmation — she served at the pleasure of the president. Kennedy likely did not have the authority to dismiss her.

Her lawyers insisted she was staying put. But at 9:30 p.m., a spokesperson for President Donald Trump, Kush Desai, said in an email message that Monarez had been terminated.

“As her attorney’s statement makes abundantly clear, Susan Monarez is not aligned with the President’s agenda of Making America Healthy Again,” Desai wrote.

“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.”

Monarez’s firing, along with the resignations of four of the CDC’s top leaders, will undoubtedly throw the nation’s public health agency into further turmoil after a tumultuous month in which agency employees were laid off and a gunman fired a barrage of bullets at the Atlanta headquarters, killing a police officer and terrifying employees.

Her lawyers, Mark S. Zaid and Abbe Lowell, asserted in a statement earlier Wednesday that Monarez’s situation was symbolic of larger issues.

“It is about the systematic dismantling of public health institutions, the silencing of experts, and the dangerous politicization of science,” Zaid and Lowell wrote. “The attack on Dr. Monarez is a warning to every American: Our evidence-based systems are being undermined from within.”

The clash between Kennedy and Monarez, which had been brewing for days, burst into public view Wednesday. That afternoon, the Department of Health and Human Services announced on the social platform X that Monarez was “no longer” director of the CDC.

Without elaborating, the agency thanked her for “her dedicated service to the American people,” adding, “@SecKennedy has full confidence in his team at @CDCgov who will continue to be vigilant in protecting Americans against infectious diseases at home and abroad.”

Hours later, Lowell and Zaid disputed the department’s account, saying 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.”

Kennedy and his department, they said, “have set their sights on weaponizing public health for political gain and putting millions of American lives at risk.”

Neither Monarez nor the HHS responded to requests for comment.

Monarez and Kennedy were at odds over vaccine policy, according to an administration official who is familiar with the events.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, said Kennedy summoned Monarez to his office Monday and demanded that she resign. When she refused, Kennedy demanded that she remove the agency’s top leadership by the end of the week.

Monarez then called Sen. Bill Cassidy, the Republican chair of the Senate health committee, who in turn called Kennedy, according to the official. Kennedy, furious, summoned Monarez to a second meeting Tuesday and accused her of “being a leaker,” according to the official, and told her she would be fired.

The official said Monarez spoke to other senators as well. On Wednesday, a White House official told Monarez that if she did not resign by the end of the day, President Donald Trump would terminate her.

The four high-ranking agency officials who did resign are Dr. Debra Houry, the CDC’s chief medical officer; Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, who ran the center that issues vaccine recommendations; Dr. Daniel Jernigan, who oversaw the center that oversees vaccine safety; and Dr. Jennifer Layden, who led the office of public health data.

Some cited an increasingly tense environment within the administration that had become intolerable.

“I am not able to serve in this role any longer because of the ongoing weaponization of public health,” Daskalakis wrote in an email to colleagues, adding that they “continue to shine despite this dark cloud over the agency and our profession.”

Jernigan was deeply involved in the agency’s response to anthrax, swine flu and COVID; Daskalakis helped the nation cope with an mpox outbreak; Layden established the COVID strategic science unit; and Houry built the agency’s opioid response program.

Former CDC leaders said the departures would harm the agency and the nation.

Dr. Mandy Cohen, who ran the agency during the second half of the Biden administration, called the officials “exceptional leaders who have served over many decades and many administrations,” and warned that “the weakening of the CDC leaves us less safe and more vulnerable as a country.”

Dr. Anne Schuchat, the CDC’s principal deputy director until her retirement in May 2021, called them “the best of the best.”

“These individuals are physician-scientist public health superstars,” she said. “I think we should all be scared about the nation’s health security.”

The resignations, which coincided with a decision by the Food and Drug Administration to put new restrictions on updated COVID vaccines for the fall-winter season, occurred at a difficult time for the nation’s public health agency.

This month, a gunman angry about COVID vaccines opened fire on CDC headquarters in Atlanta, killing a police officer, shattering bullet-resistant windows and traumatizing employees.

After the attack, Houry and Daskalakis pushed for Monarez to reassure CDC employees that the matter would be given the attention it deserved.

“We’re mad this has happened,” Houry said in a large group call the day after the shooting. Daskalakis, whose office was among those hit by bullets, told Monarez that employees wanted to see a plan for their safety and an acknowledgment that the attack was not just “a shooting that just happened across the street with some stray bullets.”

It seemed to many employees on the call that Monarez had not spoken to Kennedy directly after the attack. Kennedy did not address the shooting until the day afterward, when he posted condolences on his official X accounts. Trump still has not spoken about the assault.

CDC employees issued an open letter pleading with Kennedy, who has repeatedly cast doubt on COVID shots and other vaccines, to stop spreading “inaccurate information.”

Monarez, while not pointing a finger at the health secretary, echoed their concerns about misinformation in a note to employees.

Monarez was the first nonphysician to lead the CDC in more than 50 years. She had been acting director of the agency since Trump took office, and she was nominated to the top post after the president withdrew his first choice, Dr. David Weldon.

Morale has plummeted at the agency as Kennedy severely reduced the workforce, sharply cut back CDC funding and eliminated some core functions of the agency.

Monarez was expected to run her plans by Matt Buckham, the new chief of staff at HHS, and by Matt Buzzelli, the chief of staff at CDC, according to a person familiar with the unusual arrangement.