President Donald Trump is not happy with the recent firing of Centers for Disease Control Director Susan Monarez but came to her ouster’s defense Monday out of a sense of debt to one of his top cabinet members, political commentator and journalist Jonah Goldberg said on Tuesday.
Monarez, a Trump appointee, was removed from her position last week by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — reportedly after she refused to do something “illegal” — sparking a walkout of hundreds of CDC staffers in protest. And on Monday, Trump appeared to come to RFK Jr.’s defense in a lengthy social media post.
But behind the scenes, Trump isn’t pleased with the chaos at the CDC brought on by RFK Jr., but feels compelled to come to his defense due to a perceived debt of gratitude, Goldberg suspected.
“It's beyond vandalism what [RFK Jr.] is trying to do because I think he has bought into crackpottery at a very high level, and the problem is that Donald Trump feels like he owes RFK Jr. in ways he doesn't owe other Cabinet secretaries,” Goldberg said.
“It was one of the only times in the campaign that Trump's numbers actually went up, when RFK Jr. endorsed, and that's, I think, the background of that Truth Social post, that Trump does not like this. It's very rare [that] I agree with Truth Social posts because they're basically wacky Japanese game-show weirdness.”
For years, RFK Jr. has floated thoroughly debunked conspiracy theories on vaccines, including that they cause autism. His delving into conspiracy theories on vaccines often clashes with one of Trump’s defining achievements during his first term, Operation Warp Speed, the policy initiative that saw the rapid development of the COVID-19 vaccines that Trump regularly touts as one of his signature accomplishments.
And, while Goldberg would go on to say he had been describing RFK Jr. as “a crackpot crank for 25 years,” the HHS secretary brought with him to the MAGA movement his own base of support, one that Goldberg suspects Trump is well aware of.
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