It Appears RFK Jr. Is Having Trouble Finding Anyone To Take The CDC Director Job

from the running-out-of-clowns dept

All the way back in August of 2025, RFK Jr. made the extraordinary decision to fire his own CDC Director, Susan Monarez, after only a few weeks on the job. Kennedy claimed at the time that he fired Monarez because she told him affirmatively that she wasn’t trustworthy. That was obviously laughable and Monarez herself disputed that, saying she was instead fired for not agreeing to rubber stamp everything that came out of Kennedy’s remade version of ACIP and for daring to talk to members of Congress about the goings on at CDC. One of those stories is much more believable than the other.

Regardless, she was fired and replaced as Director of CDC by… nobody. Nobody Senate-confirmed into a permanent role, at least. And it turns out there is a time limit for how long the role could remain vacant, which Kennedy and the Trump administration have now blown past.

According to federal law, there’s a 210-day limit on a Senate-confirmed position being filled by someone in an acting capacity. The clock started when anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired Susan Monarez from her Senate-confirmed role as CDC director in late August—allegedly after she refused to rubber-stamp changes to CDC vaccine recommendations. Until yesterday, Jay Bhattacharya, who heads the National Institutes of Health, had stepped in to also be the acting director of the CDC. But he can no longer hold the position officially.

It’s not that Kennedy doesn’t want a CDC Director. It just appears he’s having trouble finding one that wants to take the job and is willing to be his sycophant. I’ll remind you all that the country currently has a measles outbreak problem on its hands and having the role of CDC Director vacant at such a time is mountains of stupid. The CDC itself isn’t publicly commenting on why the role has been so difficult to fill, but it’s fairly obvious to this writer.

Who could possibly see all of the chaos at CDC, the strong-arming of staff there to bend to Kennedy’s wishes, the quick exits and resignations of top talent, and say, “Sure, sign me up to manage that.”?

So far, Kennedy seems to be struggling with the search. According to reporting from The Washington Post, sources close to the matter said the goal was to name a nominee before the deadline Wednesday, but Kennedy was unable to do so. Sources said around half a dozen people were being seriously considered for the role.

A spokesperson said only that Kennedy and Chris Klomp, the operational leader of HHS and a close advisor to Kennedy, “are working with the White House on the CDC director search by evaluating candidates that can further the Trump administration’s objective of restoring the CDC to its original mission of fighting infectious disease.”

Good luck and Godspeed. The last nomination of Kennedy’s hasn’t been going all that well, with his Surgeon General pick languishing in limbo over her lack of qualifications for the position combined with a disastrous performance in confirmation hearings.

One of the chief duties of a Secretary-level administrator in government is to fill lower roles with good people. If Kennedy can’t even do that, then what’s the point of keeping him in place?

Filed Under: cdc, rfk jr.