Nominating a career public servant like Susan Monarez to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would once have been considered an obvious choice.
But her public health bona fides — which include a position as director of medical preparedness policy at the White House, a stint as a top adviser to the Department of Homeland Security and her current role as the acting director of the CDC — are exactly why the Make America Healthy Again movement is so against Monarez’s nomination. MAHA leaders have made their displeasure with Monarez — and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — exceedingly clear on social media.
“One step forward, two steps back,” Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group founded by Kennedy, wrote on social media in response to news of Monarez’s nomination. (Kennedy stepped down from a leadership role with the group when he began his own presidential campaign in 2023.)