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In today’s issue:
▪ Kennedy reshapes CDC, vaccine access
▪ Newsom surges in new primary poll
▪ Minnesota shooting revives mental health debate
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is set to face pointed questions when he travels to Capitol Hill next week.
Kennedy’s push to remove the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), less than a month after she won Senate confirmation, is sparking broad scrutiny in Washington.
The exit of several other high-level CDC officials, along with questions over vaccine policy, are raising concerns among Democrats and many in the health community, even as the GOP cheers a number of the administration’s moves.
Kennedy is scheduled to appear before the Senate Finance Committee on Sept. 4, the panel announced Thursday. The hearing is focused on the president’s health agenda for the coming year, and the Cabinet member is expected to be pressed by Democrats over the upheaval at the CDC.
Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) said Kennedy “has placed addressing the underlying causes of chronic diseases at the forefront of this Administration’s health care agenda.”
“I look forward to learning more about @HHSGov’s Make America Healthy Again actions to date and plans moving forward,” he wrote Thursday on X.
RED LINES: CDC Director Susan Monarez was abruptly ousted from her role this week amid a clash over vaccine policy. The New York Times reported she was removed after she declined to fire agency leaders or commit to accept all recommendations from a vaccine advisory panel Kennedy overhauled earlier this year.
Monarez’s lawyers contested the decision to remove her, with the White House ultimately stepping in to say she was fired. The CDC chief had just completed her first month after being confirmed by the Senate. The Trump administration has tapped Kennedy’s deputy, Jim O’Neill, to serve as acting director of the CDC, officials told The Hill.
O’Neill was sworn in as deputy HHS secretary in June and worked at the department during the George W. Bush administration. More recently he has been a Silicon Valley investor and was former CEO of the Thiel Foundation, funded by GOP donor Peter Thiel.
Richard Besser, CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and a former acting CDC director in the Obama administration, told reporters on Thursday that Monarez refused to fire top CDC leaders and sign off on changes to vaccines.
“She said that there were two things she would never do in the job,” Besser said at a news conference. “She said she was asked to do both of those, one in terms of firing her leadership, who are talented civil servants like herself, and the other was to rubber-stamp [vaccine] recommendations that flew in the face of science, and she was not going to do either of those things.”
The Hill’s Alejandra O’Connell-Domenech and Joseph Choi have five key takeaways from Monarez’s ouster.
MAHA MOVES: The Trump administration said Thursday the CDC needs to align with the president’s “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) agenda. In an interview on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends,” Kennedy criticized the CDC for touting water fluoridation, vaccines and abortion as pillars of public health.
“The agency is in trouble, and we need to fix it — and we are fixing it,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic, has sought to throttle access to COVID-19 vaccines in recent months, while overhauling the panel that has long advised the CDC on vaccine approvals. He has worked to shift the focus of public health agencies to environmental toxins that he blames for causing obesity, autism and mental health issues.
“We need to look at the priorities of the agency,” Kennedy told Fox, saying he believes “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.”
Scientists and public health experts have expressed dismay at Kennedy’s rationale. In addition to curtailing broad access to COVID-19 vaccines, Kennedy seeks to overhaul vaccine policy more broadly, which experts and former CDC staffers warn could harm Americans’ health.
Demetre Daskalakis, head of the agency’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, was among the CDC officials who resigned Wednesday, saying in his resignation letter “enough is enough.”
“I am unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public’s health,” he wrote.
▪ The Hill: Kennedy said Thursday he thinks his agency’s forthcoming report on autism will reveal an “aggregation of causes” that lead to the neurological disorder.
▪ The Atlantic: The CDC’s departing leaders discuss the agency’s future — or lack thereof.
CONGRESSIONAL BACKLASH: Kennedy’s reshaping of the CDC has drawn bipartisan criticism in Congress, chiefly from Democrats but with notable GOP voices.
“Yesterday’s events are yet more evidence that putting a quack like Bobby Kennedy in charge of public health was a grave error,” Sen. Jon Ossoff (D), whose home state of Georgia is home to the CDC’s headquarters, said in a Thursday statement. “The Trump Administration has been engaged for months in a campaign to destroy the CDC, America’s preeminent disease-fighting agency.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) called for a bipartisan investigation into the removal of the CDC head. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) echoed that push, calling Monarez’s firing “outrageous.”
“I am extremely alarmed at the firing of the CDC director,” GOP Sen. Susan Collins (Maine) told reporters. “I know her. I have met with her several times and talked with her on the phone, and I see no basis for her firing.”
CONFIRMATION PROMISES: Republican senators who voted to confirm Kennedy must reconcile his CDC vaccine policies with the promises he made at his confirmation hearings.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a physician and chair of the Senate’s health panel, said in January he faced a “dilemma” over whether to support Kennedy’s confirmation based on his rhetoric surrounding vaccine science. Cassidy ultimately voted to confirm Kennedy.
Following Monarez’s ouster, Cassidy called for the department’s vaccine advisory panel to indefinitely postpone its next meeting, citing “serious allegations” raised “about the meeting agenda, membership, and lack of scientific process being followed.”
“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,” he said in a statement.
Still, it’s unclear how far GOP senators will go in challenging the Trump administration’s moves, writes The Hill’s Alexander Bolton.
The overwhelming majority of GOP senators have repeatedly sought to downplay major differences of opinion with Trump and the most controversial members of his Cabinet this year. Both Collins and Cassidy are up for reelection next year.
Republican strategists warned the CDC shake-up could underscore concerns that Kennedy is attempting to bend policy to fit a political narrative regardless of scientific reality.
“It’s a huge problem for CDC, for the country and for Kennedy’s credibility,” one strategist said. “He talked as if he just wanted transparency and to engage in a conversation, and he’s clearly trying to cook the [books] on this point.”
Programming note: Morning Report will be off for Labor Day and returns on Tuesday. Click here to sign up to get The Hill’s Tipsheet on Monday.
Smart Take with Blake Burman
Labor Day weekend could mean a lot of different things to Americans. For many this weekend, it means the start of college football. College sports have become big business across the country, and congressional members next month could take up a bipartisan bill, the SCORE Act, that would regulate the massive amounts of money student athletes can earn.
Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.) is leading the effort behind the bill, and told me it could help protect college athletes.
“Right now, it’s pay for play. We have to cut that out,” he said. “We have professional basketball teams, etc. We need to preserve college athletics the way we knew it was. Now, you know, these athletes need a little money and we’re going to do that, but it’s going to be reasonable.”
This bill does have skeptics, including Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), who worries the measure could disadvantage smaller schools. However, with the popularity of college athletics, it might be hard for Congress to punt on this issue.
3 Things to Know Today
1. A U.S. tariff exemption for small packages ended today, resulting in cancellations of some orders consumers were awaiting as costs rose for foreign products hit with import taxes. Here’s what to know.
2. The economy expanded by 3.3 percent in the second quarter, according to a revised report released Thursday. Key inflation data is set to be released later this morning.
3. Classical architecture is now the “preferred and default” style for federal buildings, Trump declared in a Thursday executive order.
Leading the Day
2028: California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) recent clash as a blue-state governor up against Texas Republicans and Trump in a political showdown over redistricting gained coast-to-coast press coverage. And it may have helped the term-limited Democrat nationally, judging by a new poll released this morning.
An Emerson College Polling survey found 25 percent of Democratic primary voters saying they would support Newsom as the 2028 Democratic presidential nominee, a significant jump from the 12 percent he received in a similar poll conducted in June.
Newsom, who also clashed with Trump over the president’s decision this summer to deploy National Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles, has commanded broad attention in online with pointed jabs at the president and his administration.
Meanwhile, Trump is mulling whether the Republican Party should hold a convention ahead of next year’s midterm contests. The Democratic Party, which has ground to make up with fundraising, voter registration and overall messaging, also has been pondering that idea, which the party hasn’t done since the 1980s. Such a convention might showcase potential 2028 presidential contenders who want to display their support for midterm candidates and party leaders.
The president late Thursday on social media described the strength of the Republican Party on his watch and suggested a GOP convention before next year’s elections could be announced. “I am thinking of recommending a National Convention to the Republican Party, just prior to the Midterms. It has never been done before. STAY TUNED!!!”
FEDERAL RESERVE: Fed board member Lisa Cook sued Trump on Thursday to challenge the legality of his efforts to fire her. The president asserts he has “cause” under the law, citing allegations of mortgage fraud before Cook joined the Fed in 2022. A judge set a hearing for this morning.
Legal analysts predict the battle involving executive power and Fed independence — coming amid Trump’s broader criticisms that the Fed should cut interest rates — will swiftly rise to the Supreme Court.
Cook has not been charged with any crime. Her Senate-confirmed term ends in 2038, and administration officials suggested this week she should take leave from her post while the court proceedings play out. She has said she will not resign. The case was assigned to Judge Jia Cobb, who was appointed to the federal bench by former President Biden.
▪ The Hill: The president’s direct authority over the U.S. economy surpasses any recent predecessor.
▪ The Hill: Trump fired Robert Primus, a transportation regulator and Democrat who has been involved in a rail merger between Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific. He was nominated to serve on the five-member board in 2020 during Trump’s first term and began serving the following year.
Where and When
▪ The president has no public schedule.
▪ The Bureau of Economic Analysis releases personal-consumption expenditures price data, the Fed’s preferred inflation measure, at 8:30 a.m. EDT.
▪ The Senate will hold a pro forma session at 7 a.m.
▪ The House will hold a pro forma session at 1:30 p.m.
Zoom In
MINNEAPOLIS: The deaths of two children in a Minneapolis church shooting on Wednesday revived debate about mental health and mass shootings. Investigators continue to search for a motive for the suspected 23-year-old shooter and have turned to his writings for warning signs.
“I think it’s time we start asking some very hard questions about the root causes of this violence,” Vice President Vance said Thursday during a speech in Lacrosse, Wis. “We really do have, I think, a mental health crisis in the United States of America.” He called for “an American conversation” about mental health to be led by Trump, the vice president and first lady Melania Trump.
“We take way more psychiatric medication than any other nation on Earth,” Vance asserted.
Kennedy also mentioned prescription drugs while referring to the Minnesota killings. Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) blasted the Health and Human Services secretary after he told Fox News the government was launching a study to gauge whether psychiatric medications given to children could partly be to blame for school shootings.
“I dare you to go to Annunciation School and tell our grieving community, in effect, guns don’t kill kids, antidepressants do,” Smith wrote on social media. “Just shut up. Stop peddling bulls‑‑‑. You should be fired.”
Leaders in Minnesota pointed to the proliferation of weapons in the U.S. as well as mental health concerns nationally, advocating that policymakers tackle multiple issues.
“We have more guns in America than people. Say it again: We have more guns in America than people,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) told MSNBC during a Wednesday interview. “Why is it so easy to get a whole heap ton of guns? Why is it that you can buy a gun virtually every month if you wanted to? What good is that? We’re not talking about your father’s hunting rifle.”
“We’re talking about people that have gotten guns seemingly, in this case legally, that obviously have a whole ton of mental health issues,” he said.
Officials say Robin Westman, a former student at Annunciation Catholic School, was armed with a rifle, shotgun and a pistol, all licensed. The victims were attending a back-to-school mass.
In addition to the two children killed, 17 others, mostly children, were injured before the shooter killed himself. Investigators are scouring his writings, social media and videos in search of information about Westman’s intentions and reasoning.
Trump held a White House summit on mental health in December 2019 during his first term.
“We need to keep very dangerous people off our streets, and we want to take care of the mental illness,” he said. “Of the 11 million Americans living with severe mental illness, 4 million receive no mental health service of any kind.”
CONGRESS: Averting a possible government shutdown before Sept. 30 calls for a meeting among top House and Senate leaders, Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said Thursday. They proposed a negotiation among the top party leadership in each chamber to put together a deal on a stopgap funding measure that would give lawmakers more time to finish work on the annual appropriations bills, they wrote in a letter to their Republican counterparts.
STATE WATCH:
• In California, Newsom said Thursday he will deploy new “crime suppression teams” statewide using California Highway Patrol officers in partnership with local officials in six regions: San Diego, the Inland Empire, Los Angeles, the Central Valley, Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area. It’s an escalation of a strategy the governor previously tried in Oakland and Bakersfield with a focus on cracking down on retail theft, stolen vehicles and drug dealing. Newsom took a swipe at Trump’s federalization of policing in Washington, D.C., by pointing to Republican-led states with higher violent crime and murder rates.
• South Carolina on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to lift a federal appeals court’s ruling blocking the state from putting into effect a budget proviso that withholds some funding from districts that violate a ban on transgender students using school bathrooms aligned with a chosen gender identity.
• Texas state lawmakers moved Thursday to curtail the distribution of mail-order abortion medications from states where it’s legal, such as New York and California, allowing nearly anyone to sue doctors, distributors and manufacturers nationwide and collect cash awards. The legislation, which is nearing final passage, is expected to be emulated by other states seeking to limit medication abortion. The legislation is intended as a deterrent by triggering a storm of lawsuits against medical providers, pharmaceutical companies and companies such as FedEx or UPS that may ship the drugs.
Elsewhere
GAZA: Trump’s Wednesday Oval Office meeting to discuss a postwar plan for Gaza involved two high-profile invited guests: the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, as well as Israeli official Ron Dermer.
Axios reports Dermer said Israel does not want to occupy Gaza for the long term, but it must be assured it will not be governed by Hamas. Trump gave Kushner and Blair his approval to develop a plan, but there is not yet a viable option for who would take over the enclave.
“Dermer’s message was: As long as our conditions are met, we will be flexible about everything else,” a source told Axios.
▪ The Washington Post: As Israel seeks to empty Gaza City, its residents weigh whether to leave.
▪ The New York Times: Britain, France and Germany could trigger the reimposition of harsh sanctions on Iran as the 2015 nuclear deal is soon to expire.
UKRAINE: Russia on Thursday launched a major air attack on Kyiv that included a rare strike on the city center, killing at least 18 people and wounding 48.
The strike marked the first major Russian attack on Kyiv in weeks as the U.S.-led peace efforts to end the war struggled to gain traction. The United Kingdom said the attack sabotaged peace efforts, while top European Union diplomat Kaja Kallas summoned Russia’s EU envoy to Brussels over strikes that damaged EU offices.
Two of Ukraine’s top envoys are set to meet with the Trump administration today regarding mediation.
▪ Reuters: The “land swap” that wasn’t: Inside Trump’s frantic dash for Ukraine peace.
▪ The Hill: Three-quarters of surveyed U.S. voters say they wouldn’t trust Russian President Vladimir Putin to honor any peace deal reached to end the war in Ukraine.
▪ The Hill: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will make his first visit to China in six years to attend a military parade next week. Putin is also expected to attend.
Opinion
▪ RFK Jr. cannot be contained, by The Washington Post editorial board.
▪ On crime, the Democrats still don’t get it, by Jonathan Zimmerman, opinion contributor, The Hill.
The Closer
And finally … 👏👏👏 Kudos to this week’s Morning Report Quiz winners! Readers helped us round up news of flops and failures when it comes to branding (and rebranding).
🧩Here’s who went 4/4: Lori Cowdrey Benso, Richard E. Baznik, Vince Fallon, M. Whitehouse, Robert Bradley, David Faunce, Terry Pflaumer, Jenessa Wagner, Peter John, Chuck Schoenenberger, Stanton Kirk, Sharon Banitt, Don Swanson, Linda L. Field, Blake Blanch, Marcia Gatlin, Harry Strulovici, Stewart Baker, Lynn Gardner, Jess Elger, Charles Johnson, Phil Kirstein, Dana Healey, Stan Wasser, Brian Hogan, Aakhyat Singh, Joseph Webster, Jay Rockey, Luther Berg, Savannah Petracca, John Trombetti, Julie Barnes, JA Ramos and Brent Tracy.
They knew that Cracker Barrel did an about-face this week to return to its former logo following a firestorm of social media criticism and commentary about the old one. Along the way: lots of free publicity.
MS NOW, formerly MSNBC, launched this month and was promptly mocked on social media as “most surely no one watching.” The spinoff company’s name stands for “My Source for News, Opinion and the World.”
Young adults surveyed and interviewed since November say the Democratic Party’s brand and identity could use an overhaul.
After thumbs-down reviews, Nebraska last year dropped its 5-year-old tourism slogan, “Honestly, it’s not for everyone.”
