The former Director of Disease Control and Prevention, Susan Monarez, appears before the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions of the Senate on Wednesday for its first public appearance since she was expelled from her position leading the Public Health Agency of the Nation.
Republican senator Bill Cassidy, president of the Panel and Doctor of Louisiana, who was one of the key votes to confirm the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said he was focused on learning what he carried out abruptly dismissal from Monarch only weeks after his confirmation.
“Part of our responsibility today is to ask ourselves, if someone is fired 29 days after each Republican votes for her, the Senate confirms her, said the secretary in her oath in which she did not have” unexpected scientific credentials “and the president called her an incredible mother and a dedicated public servant, what happened? Cassidy said.
Monarch, in his opening statement, gave a detailed timeline on the chain of events that, according to her, led him to expulsion.
“Since my elimination, several explanations have been offered: that I told the secretary that I would resign, that I was not aligned with the priorities of the administration, or that it was not reliable. None of those who reflect what really happened,” said Mononarez.
Monararez said there was a meeting in which he says that Kennedy told him to accept preventively recommendations of a vaccine advisory panel of the CDCs and that he fired the officials of his career that supervises the vaccine policy.
“I wouldn’t commit to that, and I think it’s the real reason they said goodbye,” said Monarch. He later added: “I was fired for holding the line of scientific integrity.”
He also said that Kennedy spoke with the White House “several times” before the meeting on the farewell.
“I could have maintained the office and the title. But I would have lost the only thing that cannot be replaced: my integrity,” said Monarch.
The former Director of Disease Control and Prevention, Susan Monarez, testifies to an audience of the Senate Health, Labor, Labor and Pensions Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, on September 17, 2025.
Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters
Kennedy, at her audience before the Senate Finance Committee on September 4, played the version of the Monaz events, which she shared that same day in an opinion article published by the Wall Street Journal.
“Did you do, in fact, what Marez director has said you did, which says:” You only accompany the recommendations of the vaccine, even if you did not believe such recommendations aligned with scientific evidence? “
“No, I didn’t,” Kennedy replied.
In a burning exchange with Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, Warren said Kennedy had only one month before described monarch as “impeccable” After she was confirmed.
“I told him that I had to give up because I asked him: ‘Are you a reliable person?’ And she said: ‘No’, “Kennedy replied. “If I had an employee to tell him that he was not reliable, would they ask them to resign, senator?”
Monararez is being united at Wednesday’s audience for Deb Houry, former medical director and deputy director of Program and Sciences of the CDC, who was one of the four main CDC officials who resigned in protest after Monaz was expelled.
The high profile outputs gave the alarm by the Kennedy vaccine policy agenda, that public health officials told them to be asked to support without adequate science. Kennedy remained in the recent Shakes of the CDC, saying that they were “absolutely necessary adjustments to restore the agency to their role as the world’s standard public health agency with a central mission to protect Americans from infectious diseases.”
Senator Cassidy told Monarch and Houry on Wednesday that “responsibility is about you to demonstrate that criticism levels by the secretary are not true.”
Cassidy’s decision to pursue the agitation of the CDC means a newly firm era for its relationship with Kennedy: a change was exhibited during Kennedy’s audience before the Senate earlier this month.
The senator accused Kennedy of undermining the legacy of President Donald Trump about the speed of the Warp operation, the government’s effort that accelerated the Covid vaccine, and told him that the recent changes in the FDA to the vaccines that were “denying” the access of the people.
The Democratic Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester, who sits in the Help Committee and has asked Kennedy to resign, said that Cassidy’s decision to call monarez to testify showed a continuous “weakening” support for the secretary.
“I think the actions of Secretary Kennedy in the Finance Committee left many not only Democrats, but the very restless Republicans,” Blunt Rochester told ABC News in an interview.
“The fact that a Republican is presiding over the committee and asked that she arrives is a positive step, and maybe prove that there is some weakening. But the reality is, you know, Secretary Kennedy must go, whether it is fired, if he renounces, it is not safe for the United States,” he said.
The Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy JR, is interviewed outside the White House West Wing, on September 9, 2025 in Washington.
Saul Loeb/AFP through Getty Images
During the Senate Finance Committee hearing on September 4, Cassidy joined two other Republicans in the Committee, the Sens. John Barraso de Wyoming, the second most powerful Republican senator, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who announced earlier this year that it did not run for re -election, in expressing concern for the management of Kennedy’s vaccines and the CDC.
Other high -level Republicans have also expressed criticism, including the leader of the majority of the Senate John Thune, who said that Kennedy had to “assume responsibility” to say goodbye to Monarch only four weeks after the Senate confirmed it. Republican senator Susan Collins de Maine said he saw no “justification” for the termination.
Republican senator John Kennedy, Cassidy’s counterpart in Louisiana, described the Kennedy management of the CDC a “stacking of multiple vehicles.”
Monarch, who publicly announced the HHS “was no longer director” on Wednesday afternoon at the end of August, he called widespread attention when he refused to leave his post, asking Trump to weigh and shoot him directly if he agreed with his secretary of the HHS. She said she was expelled because she would not agree with Kennedy’s agenda of rubber blush or shoot at high -ranking scientists.
The measure stood out in the changes in Kennedy’s vaccine policy, which have been increased in recent weeks. Kennedy canceled around $ 500 million in contracts for RNM vaccines, changed the recommendations for healthy children and pregnant women to receive COVID-19 vaccines and, through the FDA, supervised the narrowing of the approval of the covid shots updated this fall only for people over 65 years, or young Americans with underlying conditions.
A CDC committee will soon meet to discuss vaccine recommendations more broadly, including measles, papers, rubella, chickenpox vaccine (MMRV) and respiratory syncitial virus (RSV).
Kennedy has replaced all committee members with selected people, some of whom have expressed criticism of vaccines. When ABC News asked him if he plans to limit access to any of those vaccines, Kennedy said the committee would decide after a “real gold scientific review.”
Monarch expressed concerns on Wednesday with the composition of the Advisory Committee.
“According to what I observed during my mandate, there is a real risk that recommendations can be made to restrict access to vaccines for children and others needed without a rigorous scientific review. Without a permanent director of the CDC, those recommendations could be adopted,” said Monaz.
