The Biden-era CDC is officially no more. In less than a month on the job, Dr. Susan Monarez has been fired as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after clashing with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over vaccine policy. The dismissal marks a dramatic shake-up inside the nation’s top public health agency—and signals the Trump administration’s determination to put the CDC firmly under its “Make America Healthy Again” mandate.
The announcement came in blunt fashion. Kush Desai, spokesman for President Trump, said Monarez was “not aligned with the President’s agenda,” and after refusing to resign despite telling HHS she intended to step down, she was terminated. HHS followed with its own post on X: “Dr. Monarez is no longer Director of the CDC.”
Susan Monarez is no longer director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We thank her for her dedicated service to the American people. @SecKennedy has full confidence in his team at @CDCgov who will continue to be vigilant in protecting Americans against infectious…
— HHS.gov (@HHSGov) August 27, 2025
But almost immediately, the drama took a legal turn. Monarez’s high-powered attorneys, Abbe Lowell and Mark Zaid, disputed her removal outright. They claimed she had “neither resigned nor received notification from the White House that she has been fired,” and cast her as a principled scientist unwilling to “rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives.” In their telling, Monarez is still the lawful CDC director and will continue to fight.
Zaid took to social media to underscore the point: “As a presidential appointee, senate confirmed officer, only the president himself can fire her. For this reason, we reject notification Dr. Monarez has received as legally deficient and she remains as CDC Director.” The implication is clear: unless Donald Trump personally hands her a pink slip, she isn’t going anywhere.
Good riddance to these extremists at CDC.
There is NO medical evidence that the COVID vaccine changes transmission or health outcome for healthy children.
Senior CDC officials quit after director ousted by RFK Jr. https://t.co/Jxtw9MHcLM
— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) August 28, 2025
The backdrop to this clash is even more combustible. Secretary Kennedy has moved aggressively to dismantle the COVID-era framework, pulling emergency authorizations, demanding placebo-controlled trials, and scaling back mandates. Monarez, according to reports, resisted the direction and sought to protect entrenched CDC staff from termination. The collision between Trump’s reformist HHS and an old-guard CDC director was, in hindsight, inevitable.
And Monarez is not alone. Four other senior CDC officials abruptly resigned on Wednesday, the very same day FDA regulators imposed new restrictions on updated COVID vaccines. That exodus only heightens the sense of a wholesale housecleaning at the agency.
My resignation letter from CDC.
Dear Dr. Houry,
I am writing to formally resign from my position as Director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), effective August 28, 2025, close of business.…
— DrDemetre (@dr_demetre) August 27, 2025
Where this goes next is uncertain. Monarez could press her legal challenge, creating a precedent-setting court battle over whether a president can summarily dismiss a Senate-confirmed CDC director. Or, if Trump himself signs off on her firing—as seems inevitable—the legal objections collapse instantly.
