Trump firings spark CDC chaos, Fed uncertainty
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 29 August 2025
⏱️ 28 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
Susan Monarez says she refused to restrict access to vaccines as the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It wasn’t long until Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. decided she needed to go.
Monarez’s firing led to the resignations of some of the CDC’s top scientists. It comes on the heels of President Donald Trump’s attempted firing of Lisa Cook, a Federal Reserve governor.
Now, Trump’s efforts to clamp down on traditionally independent agency officials could have major consequences for the nation’s economy and public health.
Today on the weekly “Post Reports” politics roundtable, Colby Itkowitz sits down with White House reporter Dan Diamond and political reporter Dan Merica to discuss how the Trump administration’s recent moves will be felt by most Americans.
Today’s show was produced by Arjun Singh and mixed by Rennie Svirnovsky. It was edited by Laura Benshoff.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is not really about politics, but one thing that's going to be challenging in this episode is how to address the two of you? Yes, the Dan's. You can call me DD. Did you? Is that true? I can call you DD? I was also thinking like football coach, like I could just like call you by your last name. Like, hey, America. Sure. Get in the game. That works. They were like, did you say America? People think it's like a pen name. |
| 0:23.7 | Like I'm like did you say america people think it's like a pen name like i'm like you know took a name to write with |
| 0:27.0 | i mean if you didn't end up at the post could you have actually taken that pen name and yeah maybe |
| 0:32.1 | america first america oh God. That is an amazing. |
| 0:39.3 | That's your substack if this doesn't work out. |
| 0:41.7 | If I really bomb this podcast. |
| 0:43.4 | We're starting America First. America First substack coming soon to computers near you. |
| 0:50.4 | From the Newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Report's weekly politics roundtable. |
| 0:55.4 | I'm Colby Eckowitz. It's Friday, August 29. I'm joined this week by Dan Marica, politics reporter and co-anchor of the early brief newsletter here at the Post. |
| 1:04.2 | Dan, hey. |
| 1:05.0 | How you doing? |
| 1:06.0 | And we're also here with Dan Diamond, the White House reporter focusing on public health and policy. |
| 1:10.7 | Dan, thanks |
| 1:11.1 | for joining us. Colby, great to see you. Today we're covering a big shake-up at the Centers for Disease |
| 1:17.1 | Control and Prevention. The director of the CDC is out after refusing to change the government's |
| 1:21.9 | vaccine policies. And we'll talk about President Donald Trump's continued pressure campaign against |
| 1:26.7 | the Federal Reserve. |
| 1:34.2 | In both cases, the White House is trying to exert political influence on what were traditionally expert-led organizations. |
| 1:39.0 | So Dan, Diamond, you and your colleagues broke major news this week. |
| 1:44.8 | On Wednesday, the White House fired Susan Menares, the director of senators for disease control and prevention. |
| 1:49.3 | This is the government agency that, among other things, sets the national vaccine schedule. |
| 1:52.6 | What happened leading up to her firing this week? |
... |
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