Trump nominates Susan Monarez as CDC Director

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Acting Director Susan Monarez is being tapped to fill the role in a permanent capacity.

Word on Monarez’ nomination was first reported Monday by CBS and later corroborated by other new outlets. It was later confirmed by Trump in an announcement post on Truth Social.

She will be a mulligan for the Trump administration, whose first pick of internal medicine physician and former legislator Dave Weldon, M.D., was pulled over pushback over his controversial vaccine views.

Monarez also appears to have beat out other reported frontrunners Michael Burgess, M.D., a recently retired Republican House Representative, and Joseph Ladapo, M.D., Florida’s controversial surgeon general.

Monarez has been serving as the acting head of the public health agency since January. She came by way of a deputy director role with the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPAH-H), a currently leaderless biomedical research group established by former President Joe Biden and modeled after the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

Her PhD degree and background would differ from most recent CDC directors, who typically hold medical degrees and come up from within the agency.

Still, she has about 20 years of experience within government bodies such as the Department of Homeland Security, the Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Security Council. Her work has focused on issues such as antimicrobial resistance, pandemic preparedness, ethical use of artificial intelligence in healthcare, care affordability and the ongoing opioid epidemic, among other areas.

“Americans have lost confidence in the CDC due to political bias and disastrous mismanagement,” the president wrote in his announcement post. “Dr. Monarez will work closely with our GREAT Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert Kennedy Jr. Together, they will prioritize Accountability, High Standards, and Disease Prevention to finally address the Chronic Disease Epidemic and, MAKE AMERICA HEALTHY AGAIN!”

She will need to be confirmed by the Senate prior to taking up the director mantle, a first for the agency following a change passed by lawmakers in 2022.

That process will likely include questions on her stance regarding vaccines—a hot topic amid the ongoing measles outbreak that began in Texas and the oft-criticized response from Kennedy.

The issue sunk the nomination of Weldon just ahead of his scheduled confirmation hearing earlier this month. Weldon, in a statement, suggested that pushback from Sen. Bill Cassidy, M.D., R-Louisiana, a fellow physician who grilled Kennedy during confirmation for a promise to support vaccination, and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, ended his nomination.

Weldon has since said that whoever the White House chooses “to get past Cassidy, it’s best if they have never said anything remotely critical of the childhood vaccine program.”