Today’s notice: CDC left leaderless. Russell Brand in a bathtub. Can the courts stop the president? And: What the mayor is saying about Trump’s D.C. takeover.
THE LATEST
CDC shake-up: The Trump administration on Wednesday said it “terminated” Susan Monarez, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, from her position. Monarez, who is widely respected in the scientific community and had recently stood up against vaccine misinformation, is pushing back.
“Secretary Kennedy and HHS have set their sights on weaponizing public health for political gain and putting millions of American lives at risk,” her high-profile attorneys Mark Zaid and Abbe Lowell said in a statement.
The White House did not take kindly to the rebuke. “As her attorney’s statement makes abundantly clear, Susan Monarez is not aligned with the President’s agenda of Making America Healthy Again,” spokesperson Kush Desai told Jasmine.
Exodus at CDC: Three more top officials at the CDC all resigned Wednesday, two agency employees told NOTUS’ Margaret Manto:
- Demetre Daskalakis, the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases
- Daniel Jernigan, the director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases
- Debra Houry, the CDC’s chief medical officer
Behind their resignations: “I am committed to protecting the public’s health, but the ongoing changes prevent me from continuing in my job as a leader of the agency. This is a heartbreaking decision that I make with a heavy heart,” Houry wrote in a letter to CDC employees reviewed by NOTUS.
The backdrop: The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday placed new restrictions on COVID-19 vaccines.
Staff at the CDC have been on edge: “We were all nervous” for Monarez, one CDC employee texted Margaret of the ouster. “We all suspected after she stood up for us and acknowledged the misinformation that was being spread about Covid.”
“We thought, wow, she is taking a risk by agreeing with actual FACTS, and we wondered if she might be able to be the resistance in HHS,” the employee said. “But nope.”
Open tabs: Trump’s planned Chicago blitz could use naval base to house ICE agents (Chicago Sun-Times); Transportation Dept. announces plans to take over Union Station (NBC); Bolton Inquiry Eyes Emails Obtained by Foreign Government (NYT); National Guard troops in D.C. perform landscaping duties (WaPo)
From MAHA-world
Who can last at an HHS run by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.?
A split screen to Wednesday’s CDC chaos gives some answers: As the news about Monarez and top CDC officials broke, Mehmet Oz, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator, was on a call with “MAHA allies” domestic and abroad, put on by MAHA Action.
Oz: “MAHA is primarily about being curious, and if you’re curious and you actually ask real questions, acknowledging that 80% of questions are statements in disguise,” he told the roughly 2,000 callers, including Margaret. He also spoke about the nutritional value of pasta sauce.
What the call was like: Comedian and actor Russell Brand joined from a bathtub. (“It’s not a cold plunge. It’s actually a hot bath,” he told callers asking in the live comments about his surroundings. “One time I did a cold plunge with Dr. Oz and Bobby.”)
From the White House
Flags at half-mast: When asked how mass shooting events like Wednesday’s at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis applied to the Trump administration’s focus on stopping gun violence, a White House official pointed Jasmine to comments from FBI Director Kash Patel.
Patel said the shooting would be investigated as an act of domestic terrorism and a hate crime against Catholics rather than the sort of street crime the administration has focused on.
“It falls under domestic terrorism more,” the official told Jasmine.
From the states
A holding pattern in California: A spokesperson for the DCCC said House Democrats’ investments in California candidates’ campaigns and messaging will remain largely unchanged for now, even as the state moves forward on redistricting.
“Until and after California voters make their voices heard, we are focused on winning back the House,” DCCC spokesperson Anna Elsasser said in a statement to NOTUS’ Tinashe Chingarande.
Campaigns aren’t changing strategy either: “The last thing people want right now is more political games,” a spokesperson for Rep. Josh Harder’s campaign told NOTUS. Harder is running against Kevin Lincoln, the former mayor of Stockton, after narrowly defeating the Republican in 2024.
THE BIG ONE
Are the courts an adequate check? Donald Trump’s recent actions — from attempting to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook, to sending the National Guard to D.C., to saying he has the “right to do anything” he wants to do — are stress-testing the powers of the presidency.
Democrats’ confidence has limits: “The federal appeals courts have also been deciding against Trump overwhelmingly, in something like around 70% of the cases,” Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland told NOTUS.
“But when you get to the Supreme Court, which has been sliced and diced and gerrymandered by Republicans, we have a serious problem. And that’s where the court has been slicing the baloney very fine, to allow Trump to get away with a lot of unprecedented usurpation of power.”
The count: The Trump administration has faced at least 383 legal challenges, according to Just Security. Fifteen of them are from this month.
Unchartered waters: “The past six months have been remarkable for their scope — for the scope, severity and volume of the threats to free expression,” Will Creeley, legal director at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said. “I’ve been doing this work for just about 20 years, and I don’t remember anything comparable.”
NEW ON NOTUS
The great PAC heist: Accounting giant KPMG’s PAC sent a $10,000 check in October to an unnamed “federal committee” that was “fraudulently intercepted” and “altered and cashed by an unknown party,” the PAC wrote in a recent memo to the Federal Election Commission. KPMG PAC filed a police report in D.C. and disputed the transaction, Dave Levinthal reports for NOTUS.
KPMG PAC confirmed on July 16 that PNC Bank “was unable to recover the funds from the unknown party.”
Abrego Garcia update: Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, an attorney for Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, told an immigration judge Wednesday that he filed a request on Tuesday to reopen his client’s immigration proceedings in the hopes of gaining asylum. U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis also extended until early October her temporary restraining order on Abrego Garcia’s removal.
Trust fall: Crime is down in Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser said Thursday, adding that the “surge” in federal officers has “been important to us.”
What she doesn’t like: “We know having masked ICE agents in the community has not worked, and National Guards from other states have not been an efficient use of those resources,” Bowser said.
More: Susan Collins Heckled at Maine Ribbon-Cutting, by Amelia Benavides-Colón
Fired-Up Newsom Shares His Pitch for a Democratic Turnaround, by Samuel Larreal
NOT US
- For targets of Trump’s retribution, this is the lawyer on speed dial, by Daniel Barnes for Politico
- In DC, a heated standoff between police, neighbors shows unease amid law enforcement surge, by Collin Binkley for the Associated Press
- Why Federal Money Is a ‘Lifeline’ for This Republican School District, by Sarah Mervosh for The New York Times
- Inside the USAID Fire Sale, by Hana Kiros for The Atlantic
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