Kennedy to testify before Congress next week amid CDC tumult

Jessie Hellmann and Lia DeGroot, CQ-Roll Call on Aug 28, 2025

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

WASHINGTON — Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is set to testify before the Senate Finance Committee next week, giving members a chance to press him on the abrupt firing of the nation’s top public health official.

Kennedy is scheduled to appear Sept. 4 for a hearing on the president’s 2026 health care agenda, according to the committee’s website, where he’ll likely face questions about the departure of Susan Monarez from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as the departures of other top officials. Monarez was ousted from the agency just shy of a month on the job.

Kennedy declined to answer questions about the ouster on Fox News Thursday, saying that it is a “personnel issue.”

“There’s really a deeply, deeply embedded, I would say, malaise at the agency, and we need strong leadership that will go in there and that will be able to execute on President Trump’s broad ambitions for this agency,” Kennedy said.

Several other top CDC officials have resigned in the past 24 hours, including Demetre Daskalakis, who directed the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases; Chief Medical Officer Deb Houry; and Daniel Jernigan, who directed the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases.

Kennedy also would not comment on those departures, saying “The agency is in trouble, and we need to fix it, and we are fixing it, and it may be that some people should not be working there anymore.”

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, posted on social media Thursday “these high profile departures will require oversight by the HELP Committee.” A spokesperson did not respond to a request for more details.

Cassidy on Thursday also called for the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee to postpone its September meeting, which will focus on COVID-19 and other vaccines. Last week, panel member Retsef Levi, who has criticized messenger RNA vaccines and said they should be removed from the market, was handpicked by Kennedy to lead the panel’s COVID-19 workgroup.

“Serious allegations have been made about the meeting agenda, membership, and lack of scientific process being followed for the now announced September ACIP meeting,” Cassidy said in a statement. “These decisions directly impact children’s health and the meeting should not occur until significant oversight has been conducted. If the meeting proceeds, any recommendations made should be rejected as lacking legitimacy given the seriousness of the allegations and the current turmoil in CDC leadership.”

Cassidy also serves on the Finance Committee and will have an opportunity to publicly question Kennedy.

White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt did not lay out a timeline for naming a new CDC director nominee when asked during a Thursday briefing.

Pushing back

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., the ranking member of the HELP committee, said the panel should hold a hearing with Kennedy and Monarez “as soon as possible.”

“It’s outrageous that Sec. Kennedy is trying to fire the CDC Director — after only a few weeks on the job — for her commitment to public health & vaccines,” Sanders said on social media.

Attorneys for Monarez said Kennedy was “weaponizing public health for political gain and putting millions of American lives at risk.”

“When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda,” Mark S. Zaid and Abbe David Lowell wrote in a statement Wednesday evening. “For that, she has been targeted.”

Richard Besser, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and a former CDC official, told reporters on a call Thursday morning that he had spoken with Monarez Wednesday afternoon, a call they already had scheduled to discuss how the foundation could work with the CDC.

During that conversation, Monarez expressed that she didn’t expect to be in the role for much longer, he said.

She told Besser she had two lines in the sand: She would not do anything in the role that was illegal or that flew in the face of science. She had been asked to do both during her time at the agency, pointing to being asked to fire her top leadership and to “rubber stamp” ACIP vaccine recommendations, Besser said.

Besser said he was pleased to see that Cassidy said HELP Committee oversight of the high-level departures was warranted and that he’d like to see the departed officials testify.

“The idea that our most talented leaders with the best information about various diseases were not being tapped as the secretary was making decisions around vaccination policy is chilling,” he said.

_____