CDC Director Remarkably Ousted After Less Than a Month on the Job

The recently-appointed director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is already on her way out, with less than a month in the role under her belt.

Susan Monarez, a longtime government scientist who was sworn into office on July 31, was removed before the end of August according to multiple administration officials familiar with the matter who spoke with The Washington Post.

Monarez’s ouster also comes just one day after the CDC scaled back a program monitoring food contaminants at the national level, because there reportedly wasn’t enough funding available to track all eight pathogens.

Speaking anonymously with the Post, CDC employees shared that Monarez had scheduled an agencywide call for Monday, but it was cancelled Friday. It’s unclear what exactly prompted the meeting’s cancellation, or her removal.

Kennedy announced in May that the COVID-19 vaccine would no longer be included in the CDC’s recommended immunizations for healthy children and pregnant women, bypassing scientific review and angering the medical community. Monarez had previously earned a PhD in microbiology and immunology, and conducted research on developing technologies aimed for the treatment of infectious diseases. It’s possible that this experience placed her at odds with Kennedy’s anti-vaccine policies.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey excoriated transphobes for tying a mass shooting to their hateful ideology.

At a press conference Wednesday about the Annunciation Catholic School shooting Wednesday, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called out groups and individuals for attacking the trans community in the wake of the horrific event.  

“Anybody who is using this as an opportunity to villainize our trans community or any other community out there has lost their sense of common humanity,” Frey said. “We should not be operating out of a place of hate for anyone. We should be operating from a place of our love for kids … kids died today,” he said. 

The FBI identified the shooter as 23-year-old Robin Westman, who graduated from the school in 2017. Westman killed two children—an 8- and 10-year-old—when she opened fire on the building at the beginning of mass, wounding 14 other children between the ages of six and 15. Three adults in their 80s were also injured.

Authorities announced during the press briefing that they expected all the other victims to recover, though they emphasized their varying degrees of injury.

Westman was found dead from self-inflicted injuries Wednesday morning, police told CNN. 

Police officers in the city are “deeply traumatized” by what they saw, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara told reporters. Westman’s weapons were purchased legally and were “purchased recently,” according to O’Hara.

During the same press conference, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz stressed that children in the community had arrived at Annunciation Wednesday morning to learn and be curious, but were instead met with “evil and horror and death.”

“There shouldn’t be words for these types of incidents, because they should not happen,” Walz said.”There’s no words that are going to ease the pain of the families today.”

On Wednesday, conservative Fox News host and former Republican Representative Trey Gowdy floated the need for stricter gun control laws in response to the shooting that killed two schoolchildren in Minneapolis earlier in the day.

Gowdy said of the tragedy, “The only way to stop it is to identify the shooter ahead of time or keep the weapons out of their hands.” He then suggested it’s time for a national reckoning on guns.

“We’re going to have to have a conversation of freedom versus protecting children. I mean, how many school shootings does it take before we’re going to have a conversation about keeping firearms out—” he said, not finishing the statement as he went on to observe that the overwhelming majority of mass shooters are white men.

“It’s always a young white male, almost always,” Gowdy said. (Though reports Wednesday afternoon indicate that the identified shooter may have been a white transgender woman.)

As a congressman, Gowdy received money from the National Rifle Association and even spoke at the group’s 2016 “leadership forum.” He also questioned the need for tighter gun laws. After the 2018 Parkland high school shooting, he said, “Before we began to advocate for new laws, I think it is eminently fair to say, ‘How are we doing enforcing the ones we currently have?’”

Gowdy’s perspective had changed as of Wednesday: When co-host Lisa Boothe suggested that there are already “laws on the books for these types of situations,” Gowdy was skeptical, asking, “Like what?”

“Well, murder,” Boothe replied, before shifting the conversation somewhat.

Gowdy’s comments sparked outrage online from MAGA, which flooded X with calls for his firing from Fox News. “Trey Gowdy hates you and wants to take your guns,” wrote MAGA provocateur Mike Cernovich, who also accused him of “pushing for gun control and anti-white hatred.” “Shameful,” said the Florida-based pro-Trump personality Eric Daugherty.

It looks like Florida may finally be taking down the tents of its premier wetland-themed concentration camp.

Florida Division of Emergency Management Executive Director Kevin Guthrie sent an email about chaplaincy services at the ramshackle immigration detention facility, also known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” to Rabbi Mario Rojzman last week, The Associated Press reported. In the message, Guthrie claimed that the facility was “probably going to be down to 0 individuals within a few days.”

The email was sent August 22, the same day that a federal judge gave the government just two months to remove the facility’s fencing, lighting, and generators—rendering it unusable and forcing officials to clear out its detainee population.

In her ruling in a lawsuit brought by environmental groups, U.S. District Judge Kathleeen Williams also rejected the government’s claim that “Alligator Alcatraz” was run by the state of Florida, not ICE, making it subject to federal requirements.

The government has already appealed the decision, arguing that forcing the facility’s rapid closure was a hardship that would compromise its ability to enforce immigration laws. Elise Pautler Bennett, a senior attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, told The Associated Press that Guthrie’s email undermined the government’s argument.

“If it was so difficult, they would not have already accomplished it, largely,” Bennett said.

Earlier this month, the judge ordered Florida to halt construction at the facility, which both detainees and former employees said had nightmarish living conditions. Immigration attorneys have reported they were unable to contact their clients, who went missing from ICE’s detainee tracker inside the supposedly state-run facility.

It’s not entirely clear where exactly the hundreds of detainees have been moved.

At one point, the facility held nearly 1,000 people, but last week Florida Representative Maxwell Frost said that roughly 300 detainees remained. The Associated Press reported that about 100 detainees have been deported, and others have been transferred to other detention facilities, but it’s unclear whether these are federal or state facilities.

The Minneapolis shooter had eclectic politics ranging from explicit Nazism to hate for Trump to transgender equality. 

Robin Westman, 23, dressed in all black, was identified by authorities as having shot through the windows of Annunciation Catholic School during a morning Mass and killed two children, eight and 10 years old. Seventeen others, 14 of whom were children, were injured, seven critically. Westman then shot themself in the back of the church. Westman was a former student at the school.

In a YouTube video now taken offline, Westman had magazines with a variety of slurs and right-wing slogans written on them, including “kick a spic,” “fart nigga,” “McVeigh,” and “Waco.” Westman also had smoke grenades with “Jew Gas” written on them and the antisemitic, pro-Holocaust slogan “6 million wasn’t enough” written on their gear.

Interestingly, one magazine also said “Kill Trump Now.” 

Westman’s apparent video manifesto shows a journal with pages of something written in Russian, featuring disturbing drawings of the Annunciation Church interior. Westman then stabs the pages with a knife, and can be heard whispering “kill them all,” “die, I can’t wait to kill, and kill, and kill, and kill, and kill myself.” These disturbing ramblings continue throughout the 20-minute video. 

Court records show that in November 2019, when Westman was 17, their mother submitted a petition to change their name. A judge approved, writing, “Minor child identifies as a female and wants her name to reflect that identification,” according to The New York Times.

Westman’s social media presence also revealed a sticker with the trans pride flag and a machine gun captioned “Defend Equality.”

The fact that Westman’s statements are so scattered point to the obvious: that they are a deeply unwell person who committed an incredibly heinous act for political reasons that may never be known. It’s more important to actually commit to passing gun control laws than it is trying to parse through Westman’s inflammatory statements.   

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has severely restricted access to the latest Covid-19 vaccine.

The Food and Drug Administration approved updated shots from Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax on Wednesday, but only for people aged 65 or above. Under Kennedy’s new policy, younger adults and children will need at least one high-risk health condition, such as asthma or obesity, in order to qualify for the jab.

The change will require millions of Americans to navigate the expenses of the healthcare system to prove they need the Covid vaccine before they’ll be permitted to access it.

Concerned parents will no longer be able to access Pfizer’s vaccine for children under 5, either—in the same stroke, the FDA revoked the company’s emergency authorization. Instead, parents will be able to seek out vaccines from rival drug company Moderna, which per Kennedy’s order will be the only option for children between 6 months and 5 years of age.

In a statement, Kennedy reiterated that he had promised to end Covid vaccine mandates, and “end the emergency” surrounding treatment of the lethal infection. He also said he followed through on maintaining the shot’s availability for vulnerable populations, and had enforced placebo-controlled trials at pharmaceutical companies.

“In a series of FDA actions today we accomplished all four goals,” Kennedy wrote on X. “The emergency use authorizations for Covid vaccines, once used to justify broad mandates on the general public during the Biden administration, are now rescinded.”

“The American people demanded science, safety, and common sense. This framework delivers all three,” Kennedy added.

It isn’t the first vaccine that Kennedy has cancelled on the grounds of his unscientific doubts.

Earlier this month, the health secretary said his agency would divest $500 million from mRNA research, effectively axing 22 mRNA studies since—according to Kennedy—the vaccines “fail to protect” against “upper respiratory infections like COVID and flu.”

Instead, Kennedy said that his agency would shift the funding toward “safer, broader vaccine platforms that remain effective even as viruses mutate”—which apparently does not include the latest and greatest medical advances.

The problem with Kennedy’s approach is two-fold: it will result in a sacrifice of time and money. Traditional vaccines injected a weakened or dead version of a virus, triggering the body’s immune response and the development of antibodies. Researching and developing these vaccines is a “lengthy and costly” process that becomes further complicated when researchers have to respond to mutations in the virus, according to Penn Medicine.

After Kennedy took the reins at HHS, he replaced independent medical experts on the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory panel with vaccine skeptics. He also warned against the use of the MMR vaccine during Texas’s historic measles outbreak, recommending that suffering patients instead take vitamins. And he founded his new directive for America’s health policy—the “Make America Healthy Again” report—on studies generated by AI that never existed in the real world.

On Wednesday afternoon, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey delivered emotional remarks about the tragedy at a Catholic school in the city earlier that day. In the wake of the shooting—in which the gunman killed two schoolchildren and injured 17 others, before killing himself—Frey emphasized that platitudes about “thoughts and prayers” are not enough.

“And don’t just say this is about thoughts and prayers right now,” Frey said. “These kids were literally praying! It was the first week of school. They were in a church. These are kids that should be learning with their friends. They should be playing on the playground. They should be able to go to school or church in peace, without the fear or risk of violence.”

Online, many on the MAGA right villainized the Democratic mayor for these remarks, mischaracterizing his comments on the insufficiency of hollow condolences as an attack on people of faith.

The right-wing news site Daily Caller reported that Frey had used the shooting to “slander Christians.” Right-wing advocacy group America First Works called the comments “disgraceful.”

MAGA influencer Chaya Raichik (known as Libs of TikTok) said Frey had “slam[med] people who are praying for the victims.” Curtis Houck of the conservative site NewsBusters said he had “kick[ed] dirt on children praying.” Alt-right commentator and Pizzagate conspiracy monger Jack Posobiec accused him of spreading “anti-Christian hate.” A prominent anonymous X user with the handle @_johnnymaga called the mayor “the ultimate POS [piece of shit],” saying he had insulted “the faith of the children who were just gunned down in his city.”

In reaction to the speech, several MAGA accounts with significant followings ridiculed Frey for having knelt and wept before the casket of George Floyd in 2020.

For instance, Juanita Broaddrick, a pro-Trump figure who accused Bill Clinton of rape in 1999, shared a clip of Frey at Floyd’s funeral, writing of the mayor: “He is a real Piece of Sh*t. Here he is sobbing and praying at George Floyd’s gold casket. But he doesn’t want you to pray for these kids today.”

After weeks of resisting the White House’s gerrymandering efforts, Indiana lawmakers are starting to change their minds.

President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance met privately with Indiana Republicans this week as part of a pressure campaign to maximize GOP House seats before the 2026 midterms.

While Indiana’s lawmakers remain divided on the issue, the president’s personal touch has started to make a difference, according to at least one person who attended the meetings.

Just weeks ago, state Representative Jim Lucas decried the nationwide MAGA effort as a political “stunt.” But Lucas has softened his stance on redistricting Indiana since he spoke with Vance on Tuesday, reported the Indianapolis Star.

“I’m not as opposed to it as I was,” Lucas told the paper.

Talk of redistricting occupied only a small portion of the discussions, but at least one Oval Office encounter did involve a quiet push by Trump to pressure Indiana House Speaker Todd Huston and Senate President Rodric Bray on the issue, according to White House officials who spoke with The Washington Post.

In a separate discussion with Indiana lawmakers, Vance spent the last 30 minutes of his meeting attempting to sway representatives.

The White House’s intense focus on this issue is emblematic of just how nervous the GOP is about maintaining their razor-thin majority in Congress: Indiana holds nine seats in the U.S. House, and seven of those are already held by Republicans.

Gerrymandering has become a nationwide fixation since Trump demanded in July that Texas Republicans create five more House seats by redrawing its congressional map, eliminating a handful of blue districts in the process. The order, and Texas’s subsequent obedience, elicited shock and contempt from two of the country’s most populous regions—California and New York. Both states launched their own redistricting wars in the wake of the vote.

Trump issued similar directives for four other states: Missouri, Ohio, Illinois, and Florida.

The Department of Homeland Security hired an election conspiracy theorist to work in election integrity.

Heather Honey, a right-wing activist who pushed false claims of fraud after the 2020 presidential election, was hired to serve as the deputy assistant secretary on election integrity at the DHS Office of Strategy, Policy and Plans, according to Democracy Docket. The role did not previously exist under the Biden administration. 

​​Honey is the founder of the Election Research Institute, a group behind a recent elections rule change in Georgia which would allow county boards to postpone certifying election tallies until officials can review any discrepancies between ballots cast and the total number of people who voted, which are typically considered to be minor issues that are not evidence of malfeasance.

Honey is also the founder of Pennsylvania Fair Elections, an election-denying activist group that spread misinformation about the 2020 presidential election in coordination with other activists, like Cleta Mitchell. Mitchell, it’s worth noting, is a far-right activist with the ear of the president who thinks Honey is a “wonderful person.”

The Trump administration has long peddled debunked conspiracy theories that the 2020 election was stolen, and Honey’s hiring is just the latest sign that they plan to continue.

After the 2020 general election, Honey alleged widespread voter fraud in Pennsylvania and attempted to access voter records to conduct her own independent review. Honey’s research organization Verity Vote claimed that Pennsylvania had a “voter deficit” which left more than 100,000 votes uncounted, and claimed that the state had sent ballots to unregistered voters. 

Trump made slightly different allegations about Pennsylvania’s 2020 general election, claiming that there had been more votes than voters, which also proved to be false. 

Honey also served as the star witness for Kari Lake’s failed case alleging that hundreds of thousands of phony ballots were cast in Maricopa County, Arizona. She tried to accuse the county of failing to respond to her public records request for paperwork about ballot drop-off,  to which an attorney for the county argued she had completely misunderstood what kind of document she needed. 

When pressed on how many illegal ballots Honey believed had been injected into the election, she said that it wasn’t an “answerable question.”

President Donald Trump has forced out nearly 10 percent of the federal workforce.

More than 199,000 federal workers were ousted from their jobs since January, according to a new analysis by the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan nonprofit that has been tracking the cuts.

“We’re seeing the arson of our government,” Max Stier, president and CEO of Partnership for Public Service, told HuffPost. “The numbers are stunning. We can count 200,000, and the administration said 300,000, by the end of the year. That’s one in eight.”

Roughly two-thirds of the ex-employees left via Trump’s buyout—also known as his “Fork in the Road” deal—which offered furlough-threatened workers the opportunity to receive benefits and paid leave through September if they agreed to immediately resign.

Veterans have been disproportionately hurt by the mass layoffs: roughly one in four civilian employees previously served in the U.S. armed forces.

The Defense Department lost the most workers—more than 55,000 federal civilian employees were given the chop, HuffPost reported. The Treasury Department also suffered major cuts, losing more than 30,000 employees, as did the Department of Agriculture, which lost more than 21,000 people.

Those impacts have already been felt across the country. So far this year, the Social Security Administration has shuttered regional and field offices, minimizing access and creating longer wait times. Thousands of cuts at the Internal Revenue Service have also had an impact on taxpayer services. The near-total planned elimination of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—which was formed in the wake of the 2008 recession—has left Americans at the mercy of corporate interests with little legal recourse.

The exact number of employees the Trump administration has forced out remains an enigma. The Partnership for Public Service’s statistics are much higher than previously reported figures: Last month, CNN tracked just a quarter of that progress, assessing that roughly 51,000 federal employees had lost their jobs.

“Huge numbers of very talented public servants are being forced out the door. That’s going to hurt,” said Stier. “The services that Americans have come to expect are not going to be there.”