Firing Trump's most lunatic lackey is now a matter of life and death

Bear with me on this one.

I know that to 99 percent of readers, headlines reading “CDC Director Fired” fall squarely into the daily category of “Trump stupidity that I don’t want to hear about.” Fair enough. Especially if it reads, “Susan Monarez Won’t Quit” and no one knows who Monarez is.

This one’s a little different.

Monarez was confirmed as Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director on Trump’s enthusiastic nomination just 29 days ago, on a straight party-line vote of the U.S. Senate. Nothing unusual there.

But here’s the rub: The 47 Democratic “no” votes were tied to Monarez’s refusal to distance herself from the rantings of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — the twisted soul dubbed Secretary of Health and Human Services by Trump. Conversely, being Trump’s pick was the only possible consideration of 51 Republican senators.

Then an unusual thing happened. Shortly after Monarez received the keys to her office door, she started feuding with Boss Bananas because he (RFK Jr.) is, after all, not playing with anything resembling a deck of 52 when it comes to the public health. Or much of anything.

Here’s how it played out, according to New York Times reporting.

Kennedy Jr. summoned Susan Monarez, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to his office in Washington earlier this week to deliver an ultimatum.

She needed to fire career agency officials and commit to backing his advisers if they recommended restricting access to proven vaccines — or risk being fired herself, according to people familiar with the events.

So what does Monarez do? She immediately starts doing precisely what all the Democrats demanded, which was to push back against RFK Jr.’s natural instincts to Make America A Dark Ages Pit of Death Again. (That’s MAADAPODA if you’re looking to put it on a T-shirt.)

RFK Jr. demanded her resignation on the spot, not surprisingly. Initially, the White House said nothing, briefly leaving a question as to whether an initial refusal to resign would matter. It didn’t.

Trump fired Monarez, five weeks to the day he had said this about her:

“As an incredible mother and dedicated public servant, Dr. Monarez understands the importance of protecting our children, our communities, and our future. Americans have lost confidence in the CDC due to political bias and disastrous mismanagement.”

Four top CDC officials resigned in protest within four hours of RFK Jr.’s attempt to evict Monarez. Mind you, they — and Monarez — were presumably part of Trump’s MAHA braintrust until, say, 15 minutes ago.

And the two who spoke out most vocally weren’t especially shy:

• “People of dubious intent and more dubious scientific rigor (are now) in charge of recommending vaccine policy. Their desire to please a political base will result in death and disability of vulnerable children and adults.” — Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

• “Recently, the overstating of risks and the rise of misinformation have cost lives…If [Monarez] leaves, we don’t have scientific leadership anymore” — Dr. Debra Houry, CDC Chief Medical Officer.

As a footnote, the typically reticent American Public Health Association apparently snapped, calling Kennedy’s leadership “reckless mismanagement” and flatly stating: “RFK Jr. must be removed from his position.”

Unfortunately, that sort of condemnation from rational people with vast medical and scientific credentials might be precisely what Kennedy needs to survive. But it does seem to me that people who care about the collective health of our country — regardless of tribe or ideology — really ought to be speaking out.

As best as I can tell, Sen. Patty Murray, (D-Wa), has been the only Democrat willing to call for Kennedy’s firing. Where’d everyone else in her party go?

As Drs. Daskalakis and Houry told us, Kennedy’s derangement is a matter of life and death. We have no idea where this is headed.

But the nation will require a healthy dose of luck for this story to wind up as just more Trump noise.