White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt fired back at the departure of a top Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official who used the words “pregnant people” in his resignation letter.
The Trump administration was facing questions over the exodus of top public health officials after the Health and Human Services Department said that CDC Director Susan Monarez had departed after just weeks on the job.
Leavitt was asked at her press briefing on Thursday whether the administration was considering whether other high-level appointees did not align with the president’s agenda and if there would be further departures.
“Not to my knowledge,” Leavitt responded. “I understand there were a few other individuals who resigned after the firing of Ms. Monarez. One of those individuals wrote in his departure statement that he identifies pregnant women as pregnant people, so that’s not someone we want in this administration anyway.”
Dr. Demetre Daskalakis resigned from his position as director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the CDC on Wednesday after the news broke that RFK Jr was forcing out Monarez.
Daskalakis was one of at least four other top officials to exit in protest, sharing his resignation letter on X, in which he wrote, “Enough is enough.”
In the scathing post, he warned the administration treated the CDC as a tool to “generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public’s health.
“The recent change in the adult and children’s immunization schedule threaten the lives of the youngest Americans and pregnant people,” he wrote. “The data analyses that supported this decision have never been shared with CDC despite my respectful requests to HHS and other leadership.”
MAGA world seized on his use of “pregnant people” while bashing the physician and LGBTQ advocate, which Leavitt also was quick to seize on.
“If people are not aligned with the president’s vision and the secretary’s vision to make our country healthy again, then we will gladly show them the door,” she declared.
Monarez’s lawyers on Wednesday accused HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. of “weaponizing public health for political gain” and putting lives at risk. Attorneys Mark Zaid and Abbe Lowell also said she refused to “rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts.”
Her lawyers pushed back on Monarez’s firing, arguing that only the president could fire her, and she would not resign. The White House said Monarez did not align with the president’s agenda.
“Her lawyers’ statement made it abundantly clear themselves that she was not aligned with the president’s mission to make America healthy again, and the secretary asked her to resign,” Leavitt said, adding that Trump fired her.
She said that a replacement would be announced by Trump or Kennedy “very soon.”
On Thursday, crowds of CDC employees gathered outside the agency’s headquarters in Atlanta to support top officials who had resigned in protest.
Some employees wore stickers that said “save CDC,” while others carried signs with messages of support and thanks. Former top CDC officials warned the agency is on a “dangerous path” with the ousting of the top official.
