The political tide has started to turn against Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He had already sparked controversy by rolling back COVID-19 vaccine recommendations, canceling $500 million in mRNA vaccine contracts, and replacing the advisory committee for vaccines at the Centers for Disease Control with his own handpicked members.
But the firing of CDC Director Susan Monarez seems to have struck a bigger nerve. Monarez reportedly refused to pledge that she would follow the recommendations of Kennedy’s new vaccine panel, which is stacked with vaccine skeptics and denialists. Kennedy asked Monarez to resign, she refused, and President Trump fired her.
That’s according to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who said that Monarez was “not aligned with the president’s vision to make America healthy again.” But our voluble president — who called Monarez an “incredible mother and public servant” when he nominated her in March — stayed uncharacteristically silent.
Perhaps that’s because his vision always starts — and ends — with Donald J. Trump. And he can see that Kennedy is becoming a problem for him.
Four senior leaders at the CDC resigned to protest the ousting of Monarez, and they didn’t go quietly. Blasting Kennedy for ignoring “scientific reality,” the departing head of the CDC’s immunization division wrote that “the nation’s health security is at risk.”
Other public health organizations issued similar warnings. “THE SUSTAINED ATTACKS ON PUBLIC HEALTH IN THE U.S. MUST END NOW,” the Infectious Disease Society of America declared, in all-caps. (Full disclosure: my wife is a physician who specializes in infectious diseases).
Worst of all, from Trump’s perspective, Sen. Bill Cassidy said the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions — which he chairs — should hold hearings about the “high profile departures” at the CDC. Cassidy is also a member of the Senate Finance Committee, so he will have a chance to interrogate Kennedy when the secretary testifies to the committee next week about Trump’s health care agenda.
Meanwhile, Cassidy said that the meeting of the CDC’s reconstituted advisory committee should be postponed. “Serious allegations have been made about the meeting agenda, membership, and lack of scientific process,” Cassidy wrote. “The meeting should not occur until significant oversight has been conducted.”
A practicing physician before he entered politics, Cassidy promoted vaccines to his patients. Yet he voted to confirm RFK Jr. after Kennedy — a well-known anti-vaxxer — assured Cassidy that he would maintain the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee “without changes.”
But talk is cheap, especially in Washington. Kennedy went back on his word — and betrayed Cassidy — by replacing all 17 members of the panel.
No wonder Cassidy is eager to question Kennedy, which could cause enormous political fallout for Trump and his party. “It’s a huge problem for CDC, for the country, and for Kennedy’s credibility,” a Republican strategist said last week, requesting anonymity so he could talk openly.
For his own part, Cassidy is facing a tough primary challenge as he seeks reelection next year in Louisiana. His opponents have highlighted Cassidy’s 2021 vote to impeach Trump, which earned the senator a censure from the state Republican Party.
So I’ve got a modest proposal for a president who prides himself on “The Art of the Deal“: dump RFK Jr. as health secretary and replace him with Cassidy.
That would save Trump from more criticism about Kennedy, and — especially — from the disease outbreaks that are likely to occur if Kennedy’s vaccine recommendations take hold. And it would also satiate the party’s MAGA faithful, who would get to replace Cassidy in the Senate with someone who is more loyal to the president.
And from Cassidy’s point of view, it might be just what the doctor ordered. He would get to restore sanity to the country’s vaccine policies, and he would also receive an easy departure ramp from the Senate. Asked why he left the body in 1980 to become Jimmy Carter’s secretary of state, Sen. Ed Muskie famously asked, “Have you ever heard of a graceful exit?”
Cassidy would join eight other former members of Congress in Trump’s cabinet, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, and Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem. Best of all, Cassidy could provide a bridge to the medical communities that Kennedy has done so much to alienate.
Since the birth of the republic, 126 former senators have served in White House cabinets. Forty-five resigned their seats to serve their presidents, including Muskie and Rubio. We need one more senator to do that: Bill Cassidy. And Trump needs it, too.
Zimmerman teaches education and history at the University of Pennsylvania and serves on the advisory board of the Albert Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest.
