Trump or Kennedy to announce new CDC director nominee ‘very soon’, Leavitt says
When asked about the firing dispute of Susan Monarez, Karoline Leavitt confirmed that the director was “not aligned with the president’s mission to make America healthy again.”
Leavitt said when Monarez refused to resign, at secretary Kennedy’s behest, the president fired her. “Which he has every right to do,” she added.
“This woman [Monarez] has never received a vote in her life, and the president has the authority to fire those who are not aligned with his mission. A new replacement will be announced by either the president or the secretary very soon,” Leavitt said.
Key events
Judge schedules hearing in Cook lawsuit challenging firing for Friday
A federal judge in DC has scheduled a hearing in the lawsuit filed by Lisa Cook, the Federal Reserve governor that Donald Trump has moved to fire.
Judge Jia Cobb – a Biden appointee – has been assigned the case. The hearing is set for Friday 29 August at 10am ET.
The press secretary was also misleading when asked whether the president believes Covid vaccinations should be covered by health insurance, regardless of age and pre-existing conditions.
“The FDA decision does not affect the availability of Covid vaccines for Americans who want them,” Leavitt said. But the agency has authorized the updated vaccines for people 65 and older, who are known to be more at risk from serious illnesses from Covid infections.
As my colleague, Oliver Milman, reported yesterday, younger people will only be eligible if they have an underlying medical condition that makes them particularly vulnerable.
This means that the upcoming fall and winter seasons will be the first where the US government hasn’t recommended widespread Covid vaccinations.
Karoline Leavitt avoids a reporter’s question asking why the president has yet to acknowledge the shooting at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta earlier this month. Instead, she recounts the response from health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.
We absolutely were very much aware of that shooting, the secretary of Health and Human Services put out a statement immediately. He was in touch with the CDC, and he actually traveled to Georgia to assess the situation, and to mourn with the people who work in that building there.
Leavitt also said that she wasn’t aware of any kind of task force going through high level appointees who aren’t “aligned” with the administration’s agenda.
When asked if agency officials should be afraid of repercussions for speaking out publicly or privately, Leavitt’s answer was opaque:
If you’re doing your job well, and if you are executing on the vision and the promises that the President made to the public who elected him back to this office, then you should have no fear about your job. Just do your job. That’s what this president wants to see.
Trump or Kennedy to announce new CDC director nominee ‘very soon’, Leavitt says
When asked about the firing dispute of Susan Monarez, Karoline Leavitt confirmed that the director was “not aligned with the president’s mission to make America healthy again.”
Leavitt said when Monarez refused to resign, at secretary Kennedy’s behest, the president fired her. “Which he has every right to do,” she added.
“This woman [Monarez] has never received a vote in her life, and the president has the authority to fire those who are not aligned with his mission. A new replacement will be announced by either the president or the secretary very soon,” Leavitt said.
Leavitt makes misleading claims about Chicago homicides
Karoline Leavitt said today that Chicago has seen the “most murders of any US city” for 13 consecutive years.
While Chicago saw 573 homicides last year, according to FBI data, the city didn’t experience the highest murder rate in the US. St Louis, Missouri, actually saw the highest rate of homicides in both 2023 and 2024.
Leavitt just cited Muriel Bowser’s gratitude at yesterday’s press conference talking about the surge of federal law enforcement in DC.
“We thank Mayor Bowser for her cooperation and her willingness to help us make DC safe and beautiful,” she said.
Leavitt says Donald Trump will travel to New York City on 22 September to address the United Nations General Assembly on 23 September.
We’re now hearing from Karoline Leavitt, White House press secretary, at a briefing.
We’ll bring you the latest as it happens.
RFK Jr faces calls to quit as CDC chief fired and senior staff resign
Melody Schreiber
It’s been a tumultuous week for US health agencies, with the departure of several top officials, uncertainty around new Covid vaccine restrictions, and even more experts calling for the removal of top health official Robert F Kennedy Jr.
Kennedy also released controversial and confusing restrictions on Covid vaccines on Wednesday.
“I’m worried that these confusing changes will cause chaos in the vaccine distribution system that will make it harder for people–even those at high risk of severe illness–to get the Covid vaccines they may want,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, a professor of epidemiology and director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University school of public health.
The chaos on Wednesday intensified scrutiny of Kennedy after controversial moves on vaccines and the shooting at the CDC reportedly motivated by anti-vaccine briefs.
Kennedy “has to go”, said Colin Carlson, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Yale University’s school of public health, who has joined other health professionals to call for his resignation or termination.
Health and human services secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr is expected to testify before the Senate finance committee on 4 September, Politico is reporting, citing an anonymous source.
The hearing, which was already in the works and will focus on Donald Trump’s health agenda, is expected to be formally announced later today, a second person told the outlet. Senators will no doubt be keen to question Kennedy about yesterday’s sudden shakeup at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Departing top officials of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Deb Houry, Demetre Daskalakis and Dan Jernigan, were escorted from the agency’s Atlanta headquarters campus on Thursday morning, Reuters is reporting citing four sources familiar with the situation.
They have resigned over what they have condemned as political interference in their work, budget cuts and the spread of misinformation under the Trump administration. The agency is currently in a standoff with the administration over the firing of its director, Susan Monarez, with Monarez’s lawyers claiming she will not depart unless Donald Trump himself removes her.
The three CDC leaders resigned – Houry as chief medical officer, Daskalakis as director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, and Jernigan as director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases – within minutes after the news of Monarez’s firing broke, according to Politico.
My colleague, Marina Dunbar, has been covering the fallout of Susan Monarez’s firing. A reminder that Monarez is contesting her termination – with her lawyers arguing that she won’t leave unless Trump himself removes her from the role.
In the hours following the dispute, four senior CDC leaders abruptly resigned, apparently out of frustration with Robert F Kennedy Jr’s approach to vaccines and his management style.
Here’s Marina’s breakdown of who they are, and why they left the agency.
Dharna Noor
It’s a scary time to work at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), according to one agency worker who anonymously signed a letter of dissent this week.
“We’re anxious, we’re confused, and we’re desperate to get back to doing what we signed up for,” the person told the Guardian.
The staffer was one of 141 current and former Fema employees who signed the letter anonymously for fear of retribution. Thirty-six more placed their names on the letter, and some of them have been placed on a leave of absence.
“I am so proud of my coworkers who signed with their names, but devastated that they’ve been put on administrative leave,” the anonymous worker said. “If my family were impacted by a disaster, these are some of the people I would want working to help them–they believe in the mission so strongly that they put their careers and livelihoods in jeopardy.”
The letter was sent 20 years to the week after Hurricane Katrina lashed the Gulf Coast – and after Fema came under sharp criticism for its failure to provide sufficient aid to victims. The Trump administration’s erosion of Fema’s staff, programs, and autonomy are putting the US at risk of another Katrina-level disaster, says the missive sent this week.
“Katrina was a tragedy,” said the anonymous worker. “One thing you learn quickly in emergency management is that we’re all just one hurricane season, lightning strike, or fault line slip away from tragedy.”
She added: “I would also ask anyone reading this to consider adding their names to the over 4,000 individuals who have signed the Katrina Declaration in support of our requests.”
Read our full report on the crackdown on the dissenters below:
Donald Trump is calling out crime in Chicago again on Truth Social. In a post, he notes that the city saw six homicides over the weekend.
The president chastised the Illinois governor, JB Pritzker, for not asking him for help: “Can this be possible? The people are desperate for me to STOP THE CRIME, something the Democrats aren’t capable of doing.”
According to the office of the Chicago mayor, Brandon Johnson, violent crime in the city has dropped by more than 20% compared to this time last year. The murder rate has fallen by 32%, according to data compiled from the Chicago police department.
A note from the press pool traveling with vice-president JD Vance today. He’s expected to make remarks about the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in La Crosse, Wisconsin, around 2pm ET today.
Last week, you may remember that he was in Peachtree City, Georgia, on a similar tour. The administration has been rebranding the legislation as “Working Family Tax Cuts”.
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