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 and, according to officials, identified as a trans woman. 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.”

This post has been updated.

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 begin 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.