PRESIDENT TRUMP'S MOVES to fire key figures at the Federal Reserve and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have created turmoil in the government, provoking lawsuits and threats from Congress to intervene.

The CDC was in chaos Thursday after Director Susan Monarez was fired only 27 days after she was confirmed by the Senate. Four additional CDC leaders then resigned in protest, citing the “weaponizing of public health.”

The New York Times reports that Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., told Monarez on Monday that she must resign or be fired over a difference in vaccine policy.

When Monarez refused to step down, Kennedy fired her. However, Monarez brought on a high-profile lawyer who argued that only President Trump has the power to fire her.

The White House stepped in and announced her firing, saying she is “not aligned with the President’s agenda of Making America Healthy Again.”

Monarez’s lawyers argued she’s being targeted because she “refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the move, saying the statement from Monarez's attorneys "made it abundantly clear she was not aligned with the president’s mission to make American healthy again.”

Earlier this week, the CDC rescinded emergency use authorizations for the COVID-19 vaccine. In addition, Kennedy said at a Cabinet meeting that he would make a major announcement next month about “certain interventions” that are “almost certainly causing autism.”

Kennedy said Thursday his agency’s forthcoming report on autism will reveal an “aggregation of causes” that lead to the neurological disorder.

“This is a crisis,” Kennedy said in a “Fox & Friends” interview. “There is not a single cause. There are many, many — there’s an aggregation of causes.”

The Hill’s Sarah Fortinsky reports:

"Some health experts say the rising rates are more likely a result of better autism detection since the diagnosis was first developed, and a broadening of criteria in recent years. The first time someone was diagnosed with autism was in 1943.”

Four additional top CDC officials announced their resignations following the dust-up over Monarez, including Deb Houry, the chief medical officer; Demetre Daskalakis, head of the agency’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases; Dan Jernigan, head of the CDC’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; and Jennifer Layden, head of the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology.

“I am unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public’s health,” Daskalakis wrote on X.

“Having worked in local and national public health for years, I have never experienced such radical non-transparency, nor have I seen such unskilled manipulation of data to achieve a political end rather than the good of the American people,” he added.

BIPARTISAN PUSHBACK

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), the chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, said the departures “will require oversight.”

The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reports:

“Cassidy, who cast a pivotal vote to confirm Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., in February, supported Kennedy’s controversial nomination after receiving his assurance that he would not dismantle the nation’s vaccine safety systems.”

Democrats are furious over Monarez’s firing.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), ranking member on the Senate health committee, called for a bipartisan investigation.

Former HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said the ousted scientists “were essential public health leaders who helped our country get out of the pandemic.”

“Politicians don’t do science well,” Becerra said. “It is dangerous to put politics over public health. People will die.”

Here are five takeaways from the exploding tensions at the CDC.

Trump on Thursday also fired a board member of a transportation regulator that is weighing a merger between Norfolk Southern and Union........

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