Brian Lairer on WNYC.

Now we turn to our health and climate segment of the week, which we do on Tuesdays on the show to not those, not let those issues get lost in the flurry of news that is always

attacking us these days or engulfing us at least. Today, the ongoing turmoil at the Centers for

Disease Control and the implications for keeping track of what's making, what's sickening Americans and what's killing us. The agency terminated

around 1,300 employees on Friday, not just furloughed in the shutdown, but laid them off.

But then quickly worked to rescind about half of those notices the next day. That's according to the union that represents federal employees.

So what happened here?

The New York Times reports those rehired were, quote, mistakenly fired in what appeared to be a substantial procedural lapse.

So at least more doge-like sloppiness, we can say. The remaining 600 still laid off

were in offices, including the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control,

the National Center for Health Statistics, and the CDC's Washington Office, which is the

channel for communications with Congress, all of that as described

by Axios. Health and Human Services Communications Director Andrew Nixon said the government

acts, quote, non-essential employees. Now, on Friday evening, President Trump, speaking to reporters

in the White House with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. behind him,

suggested the layoffs would target, quote, Democrat-oriented agencies in response to Democrats not voting to approve a stopgap measure to fund the government.

Listen.

How many layoffs have you authorized for this first round and from which agencies?

And it will be Democrat-oriented because we figured, you know, they started this thing,

so they should be Democrat-oriented.

While several other agencies were impacted by the layoffs, the CDC was hit particularly hard.

I guess they consider it Democrat to count how many people are getting sick or dying in from what?

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