For many Americans, the dismissal of the Trump administration of the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is about the clash between the science of the establishment and the movement against previous vaccination by the Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
But for President Donald Trump, who has adopted the skepticism of the vaccine of his Maga Base while promoting the delivery of COVID-19 vaccines under his Operation Warp Speed program, fighting her on Susan Monaz is mainly about eliminating dissent.
While Trump has not talked about the destroying of the leadership of the CDC, several of the deputies of Monaz resigned after Kennedy announced that he had been eliminated earlier this week: White House officials have defended the moving, which was precipitated by monarch’s refusal to sign the vaccination recommendations of a panel that Kenedy Stack with skeptics.
“The president was elected for a reason,” said a senior White House official in a telephone interview with NBC News. “He has an opinion about all these areas, and wants to execute those opinions. If there are people who do not believe in democracy, then they should not be working on a democratic government.”
In that context, the dismissal of Monarch is part of a major effort of Trump, his cabinet and his assistants to consolidate power within the executive branch and on their margins. In many cases, the objectives are experts in their fields, the people Trump designated themselves or both.
In last week, the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, fired several senior Pentagon officials, Trump has tried to fire the governor of the Federal Lisa Cook Reserve and the member of the Robert Primus surface transport board, and the FEMA staff signed a letter criticizing Trump’s cuts to the agency have submitted an administrative license.
Monarch, Cook and Primus are fighting against their layoffs.
Some CDC employees see the president as a war of political ideology against empirical science.
“This really feels like the beginning of the end of objective science,” said a CDC employee who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid compensation. “I feel physically ill. I used to be proud to work for CDC, and now I’m afraid.”
Trump’s risk in shaking the CDC is as clear as the Covid-19 outbreak that stuns it, and damaged the health and economy of the nation, in the last year of his first mandate: Americans can blame him for throwing experience if there is another pandemic. Because it is not eligible to run for re -election, any electoral damage would probably fall on the shoulders of other Republicans.
A former Senior Trump campaign official who works in Congress campaigns said Trump will not lose any basic support to fire the CDC director, but that independent voters can question whether it is a wise movement, especially if another disease tear in the country. That could reinforce Trump and Kennedy’s democratic criticisms.
“Whatever happens, let’s say the director was there and there is an outbreak a month ago, the Democrats still say that RFK is a bat, a crazy person,” said the former campaign official. “It doesn’t change the answer. It only gives a data point.”
At the same time, there are signs that Trump will receive a rejection within his own party for the void of the leadership of the CDC, which included the resignations of Debra Houry, the agency’s medical director; Demetro Daskalakis, director of the National Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Center; Daniel Jernigan, director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; and Jen Layden, director of the Office of Public Health, Surveillance and Technology.
Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of the LA-LA., Who issued a key vote in favor of Kennedy’s confirmation after he said he obtained a series of Kennedy promises that were equivalent to a validation of the effectiveness of vaccines, called this week for the postponement of a September 18 meeting of the Human Health and Services Advisory Committee on Immunization Human Practices. That is the panel in the center of the history of Monarrez.
“Serious accusations have been made about the agenda of the meeting, membership and lack of scientific process that are followed for the September ACIP meeting now announced,” Cassidy said Thursday in a statement.
In February, when he voted to advance in Kennedy’s nomination to the Senate floor, Cassidy said Kennedy had promised not to reconstitute the panel, what Kennedy has done since then.
“If the meeting advances, any recommendation made must be rejected for lacking legitimacy given the severity of the accusations and the current agitation in the leadership of the CDC,” Cassidy said in Thursday’s statement.
The White House official said that no one should be surprised by Kennedy’s approach for vaccines, or Trump’s desire to ensure that his agenda is not resistance at any level.
“Bobby’s opinion and position on this has been very clear in this,” said the White House official. “In general, there are people buried in the government who think they can cancel or challenge the will of the president -elect.”
Trump broke into the inertia in his first mandate.
“This is a different administration: it is being handled differently,” said the White House official. “There is the belief that ‘we are still going to make our person pass and it will be good and we will resist.’ That’s not one thing.”
