White House appoints interim CDC director; standoff continues with former director

By Morgan Sweeney
The Center Square

The White House has appointed Department of Health and Human Services Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill as interim director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, The Washington Post has reported.

The attorneys for its just-terminated director maintain she has not been fired and will not resign.

At a press briefing Thursday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that President Donald Trump had fired former CDC Director Susan Monarez. Her lawyers continue to contest that claim and insist she is still the agency’s director.

“WH @PressSec can say whatever she wants because thankfully free speech still exists in this country,” wrote Mark Zaid, one of Monarez’s attorneys, on social media platform X. “But it doesn’t make her comments factually true, even when from a White House podium.”

Monarez is a longtime government scientist and was confirmed by the Senate and sworn into office in July after Trump appointed her in March. A joint statement from her lawyers claimed that she had been “targeted” for “[refusing] to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts.”

Leavitt said Thursday, in conjunction with statements from other White House spokespeople, that Monarez was out of step with the administration’s plan to improve the nation’s health.

“She was not aligned with the president’s mission to make America healthy again, and the secretary asked her to resign. She said she would, and then she said she wouldn’t, so the president fired her, which he has every right to do,” Leavitt told reporters.

The back-and-forth started with a post on social media platform X around 5:30 p.m. Wednesday from the official Health and Human Services account stating that Monarez had been terminated.

“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 diseases at home and abroad,” the post read.

Her lawyers pushed back on X, saying that she had neither “resigned nor received notification from the White House that she has been fired” and “she will not resign.” They have argued that because she was a presidential appointee confirmed by the Senate, only the “president himself” has the power to fire her.

The White House would not confirm with The Center Square how it had notified Monarez or the CDC of her termination – only that it had, in fact, fired her.

“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,” White House Spokesman Kush Desai said in an email.

The Center Square reached out to the law firm of Abbe Lowell – Monarez’s other lawyer who has also defended Hunter Biden, Bob Menendez, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump – to confirm whether it was pursuing a lawsuit against the administration. It did not respond in time for publication.

Monarez’s termination is just one of many layoffs or headline-grabbing terminations that have occurred in the federal government this week. The other most high-profile case is that of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. Though reportedly no American president has ever fired a Fed governor before, Trump terminated Cook Monday.

A president is allowed to do so “for cause,” according to the law. Trump’s cause is mortgage fraud, as Cook allegedly indicated two residences in different states as her primary residence.

Lowell, who is also defending Cook, filed a lawsuit against the president Thursday, arguing that the president doesn’t have sufficient cause as Cook has not been convicted of a crime at this time.

When asked at Thursday’s briefing whether the president would wait to fill Cook’s post until the lawsuit had been resolved, Leavitt would not give a definitive answer.

“I will leave that to the president to make that decision and that announcement himself,” Leavitt replied. She earlier said that Trump “has the cause that he needs to fire this individual and the administration would “continue to fight this battle.”

Three-dozen employees of the Federal Emergency Management Agency were also put on leave this week, according to ABC News, after submitting a public letter criticizing the administration and requesting that changes be made.