White House picks Kennedy deputy Jim O’Neill to run CDC amid senator backlash
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. My name is Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you the latest news lines over the next few hours.
We begin with news that the White House has chosen a deputy of Robert F Kennedy Jr to serve as the acting head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a decision that comes as the standoff over the firing of director Susan Monarez has deepened, with Monarez’s lawyers claiming she will not depart unless Donald Trump himself removes her.
A White House official confirmed to the Guardian that Jim O’Neill, currently the deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), had been selected to temporarily lead the public health agency, giving Kennedy an ally in his efforts to overhaul US vaccine policy.
Unlike Monarez, O’Neill, a former investment executive, does not have a medical or scientific background. He served as a former speechwriter for the health department during the George W Bush administration, and went on to work for the tech investor and conservative megadonor Peter Thiel.
Senator Bill Cassidy, chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, called on the department’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) to indefinitely postpone its upcoming 18 September meeting.
He said:
Serious allegations have been made about the meeting agenda, membership and lack of scientific process being followed for the now announced September ACIP meeting.
Meanwhile, senator Susan Collins said she was “alarmed” by Monarez’s firing, adding:
Susan Monarez is a highly capable scientist who brought a wealth of experience to the agency. While I recognize that the CDC director serves at the pleasure of the president, I am alarmed that she has been fired after only three weeks on the job.
Last night I talked with former director Monarez about her removal. I agree with chairman Bill Cassidy, who heads the Senate committee with jurisdiction over the CDC, that this matter warrants congressional oversight.
It came as senior CDC vaccine research and public health leaders who resigned in protest told hundreds of supporters across the street from the campus on Thursday that the Trump administration needs to “get politics out of public health”.
In other developments:
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The president is gravely serious about running for a third term in violation of the US constitution, California governor Gavin Newsom said on Wednesday, warning Americans to “wake up” to what he described as Trump’s flagrant disregard for democratic norms. “I don’t think Donald Trump wants another election,” Newsom, a Democrat, said during a live interview at a summit hosted by Politico in Sacramento. “This guy doesn’t believe in free, fair elections.”
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The White House has requested that a US military base on the outskirts of Chicago assist with immigration operations as the Trump administration plans a broader takeover of Democratic-run “sanctuary cities”. On Thursday, the Naval Station Great Lakes confirmed that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had reached out for assistance, telling the Associated Press that the DHS had requested “limited support in the form of facilities, infrastructure and other logistical needs to support DHS operations”.
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The air force will provide military funeral honors to Ashli Babbitt, the rioter fatally shot during the January 6 Capitol attack, marking another step in Donald Trump’s aggressive rehabilitation of the attack.
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A Washington senator has called for the Trump administration to provide “immediate answers” about reports that two firefighters were detained by border agents as they were responding to a wildfire in the state.
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Seven people have arrived in Rwanda as part of a deal to accept deportees from the US, the Rwandan government has said. The Trump administration has been negotiating arrangements to send people to third countries including South Sudan and Eswatini, formerly Swaziland, as part of its wider deportation drive.
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The family of 18-year-old Benjamin Guerrero-Cruz was shocked when they found out that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) had discreetly moved him out of California, according to California congresswoman Luz Rivas, who spoke with his relatives and reviewed federal detention records.
Key events
Dani Anguiano
Patty Murray, the Washington senator, has called for the Trump administration to provide “immediate answers” about reports that two firefighters were detained by border agents as they were responding to a wildfire in the state.
Federal immigration authorities on Wednesday staged an operation on the scene of the Bear Gulch fire, a nearly 9,000-acre (3,600-hectare) blaze in the Olympic national forest, where they arrested two people who were part of a contract firefighting crew, the Seattle Times first reported. The fire is the largest currently burning in the state.
Authorities made the firefighters line up to show ID, the Seattle Times reported. One firefighter told the newspaper that they were not permitted to say goodbye to their detained colleagues.
“I asked them if his [co-workers] can say goodbye to him because they’re family, and they’re just ripping them away,” the firefighter said to the Seattle Times, adding that the federal agent swore and told the firefighter to leave.
The operation sparked widespread condemnation in the state. Murray in her statement released on Thursday morning demanded information about the whereabouts of the firefighters and the administration’s policy around immigration enforcement during wildfires.
Maya Yang
Meanwhile, the White House has requested that a US military base on the outskirts of Chicago assist with immigration operations as the Trump administration plans a broader takeover of Democratic-run “sanctuary cities”.
On Thursday, the Naval Station Great Lakes (NSGL) confirmed that the Department of Homeland Security had reached out for assistance, telling the Associated Press that the DHS had requested “limited support in the form of facilities, infrastructure, and other logistical needs to support DHS operations”.
An NSGL spokesperson told the outlet that no decisions have been made regarding the request and that the base has not yet received any official request to support a national guard deployment. The Guardian has reached out to the NSGL for comment.
In a statement to the Guardian, a DHS spokesperson said: “President Trump has been clear: we are going to make our streets and cities safe again. Across the country, DHS law enforcement are arresting and removing the worst of worst including gang members, murderers, pedophiles, and rapists that have terrorized American communities. Under secretary [Kristi] Noem, ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and CBP [Customs and Border Protection] are working overtime to deliver on the American people’s mandate to arrest and deport criminal illegal aliens and make America safe again.”
The signal from the Trump administration comes just a few weeks after the president directed a federal takeover of Washington DC – deploying the national guard, taking over the police department, and ramping up immigration raids and deportations in the city.
Trump suggests more US cities need National Guard
President Donald Trump has threatened to deploy the National Guard to Chicago, New York, Seattle, Baltimore, San Francisco and Portland, Oregon, to fight what he says is runaway crime.
Yet data shows most violent crime in those places and around the country has declined in recent years.
Homicides through the first six months of 2025 were down significantly compared to the same period in 2024, continuing a post-pandemic trend across the US, AP reports.
Trump, who has already taken federal control of police in Washington, DC, has maligned the six Democratic-run cities that all are in states that opposed him in 2024. But he hasn’t threatened sending in the Guard to any major cities in Republican-leaning states.
John Roman, a data expert who directs the Center on Public Safety & Justice at the University of Chicago, acknowledged violence in some urban neighborhoods has persisted for generations. But he said there’s no US city where there “is really a crisis.”
“We’re at a remarkable moment in crime in the United States,” he said.
Senator Roger Wicker, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee and one of the strongest advocates for Taiwan in the US Congress, arrived in Taipei on Friday to discuss security as China ratchets up its military pressure on the island.
Wicker, a Republican, said he and Senator Deb Fischer were visiting to reinforce the “great partnership” the United States and Taiwan had and would have in the future, Reuters reports. Fischer is also a Republican and a member of the Armed Services Committee.
“We’re here to talk to our friends and allies in Taiwan about what we’re doing to enhance worldwide peace, the kind of peace through strength that Ronald Reagan talked about,” he told reporters at Taipei’s downtown Songshan airport, referring to the late US president.
“We stand here to re-emphasise the partnership and the security friendship agreement that the United States has had with Taiwan for some decades.”
The US Senate is due to consider next week the National Defense Authorization act, or NDAA, a nearly $1 trillion bill that sets policy for the Pentagon.
Wicker said that this year’s NDAA would “add to the provisions again” when it came to Taiwan, though he gave no details.
Who is Jim O’Neill? CDC chief set to bolster RFK Jr plan to remake vaccine policy
Maanvi Singh
The White House has chosen a top aide to health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr to temporarily lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – an appointment that is expected to bolster Kennedy’s goals of remaking federal vaccine policy.
Jim O’Neill, a biotech investor and speechwriter for the health department during the George W Bush administration, was tapped as acting director of the agency that oversees vaccine recommendations, a White House official confirmed to the Guardian.
O’Neill, unlike Monarez, has no training in medicine or infectious disease science. He is a former speechwriter for the health department, during the Bush years, who went on to work for the tech investor and conservative megadonor Peter Thiel.
But who is O’Neill and what does he want to do at the CDC? Read our full explainer here:
CDC officials who quit in protest lead call to ‘get politics out of public health’
George Chidi
Senior CDC vaccine research and public health leaders who resigned in protest told hundreds of supporters across the street from the campus on Thursday that the Trump administration needs to “get politics out of public health”.
The agency is reeling from the firing of the CDC chief, Susan Monarez, but Monarez, who was confirmed as CDC chief just a month ago, has refused to be removed. Three senior leaders – Debra Houry, Demetre Daskalakis and Daniel Jernigan – resigned shortly after in protest, citing the alleged spread of misinformation under the Trump administration and political interference in their work. The staffers cheered and applauded them at the event on Thursday.
“You are the people that protect America, and America needs to see that you are the people that protect America, and we are going to be your loudest advocates,” said Daskalakis to the throng. Daskalakis, who was accompanied at the rally by Houry and Jernigan, is now the former director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases and is known for his leadership in HIV prevention and vaccination programs and the Biden administration’s response to the mpox outbreak.
The three, plus Jennifer Leyden, who led the office of public health data, resigned together on Thursday to make a statement about the damage the administration had done to public vaccine research, and in protest of the administration’s response to vaccine disinformation, they said.
“We agreed to do this together. We’ve been talking about it for months, and the past few days, it was just escalating,” said Houry, the CDC’s former chief medical officer. “If one of us retired, it would have been a blip. When the three of us do it together, it’s more powerful and just shows the state of our agency.” She and the others are asking for Congress to intervene, to put a stop to political interference in the organization’s work.
Trump faces key legal test in effort to exert control over Federal Reserve
Callum Jones
The chaos at the CDC is far from the president’s only battleground todat. Later on, Donald Trump’s battle to exert control over the Federal Reserve faces a key legal test, with a governor of the central bank seeking a temporary block on his extraordinary attempt to fire her.
Lisa Cook sued the US president on Thursday, with her lawyers describing his attempt to dismiss her as “unprecedented and illegal”, and based on “pretextual” allegations.
The case is widely expected to be ultimately decided by the supreme court. While it makes it way through the courts, Cook is seeking a temporary restraining order against Trump’s attempt to “immediately” dismiss her from the Fed’s board.
A hearing on the motion is set for 10am in Washington on Friday. The case has been assigned to US district judge Jia Cobb, an appointee of Joe Biden.
Trump wrote to Cook on Monday, telling her that he was removing her from her position “effective immediately”, based on the allegation from one of his allies that she had obtained a mortgage on a second home she incorrectly described as her primary residence.
The president has spent months attacking the Fed, where most policymakers – including Cook – have so far defied his calls for interest rate cuts. He has spoken of rapidly building “a majority” on the central bank’s board, calling into question the future of its longstanding independence from political oversight.
Read the full report here:
White House picks Kennedy deputy Jim O’Neill to run CDC amid senator backlash
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. My name is Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you the latest news lines over the next few hours.
We begin with news that the White House has chosen a deputy of Robert F Kennedy Jr to serve as the acting head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a decision that comes as the standoff over the firing of director Susan Monarez has deepened, with Monarez’s lawyers claiming she will not depart unless Donald Trump himself removes her.
A White House official confirmed to the Guardian that Jim O’Neill, currently the deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), had been selected to temporarily lead the public health agency, giving Kennedy an ally in his efforts to overhaul US vaccine policy.
Unlike Monarez, O’Neill, a former investment executive, does not have a medical or scientific background. He served as a former speechwriter for the health department during the George W Bush administration, and went on to work for the tech investor and conservative megadonor Peter Thiel.
Senator Bill Cassidy, chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, called on the department’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) to indefinitely postpone its upcoming 18 September meeting.
He said:
Serious allegations have been made about the meeting agenda, membership and lack of scientific process being followed for the now announced September ACIP meeting.
Meanwhile, senator Susan Collins said she was “alarmed” by Monarez’s firing, adding:
Susan Monarez is a highly capable scientist who brought a wealth of experience to the agency. While I recognize that the CDC director serves at the pleasure of the president, I am alarmed that she has been fired after only three weeks on the job.
Last night I talked with former director Monarez about her removal. I agree with chairman Bill Cassidy, who heads the Senate committee with jurisdiction over the CDC, that this matter warrants congressional oversight.
It came as senior CDC vaccine research and public health leaders who resigned in protest told hundreds of supporters across the street from the campus on Thursday that the Trump administration needs to “get politics out of public health”.
In other developments:
-
The president is gravely serious about running for a third term in violation of the US constitution, California governor Gavin Newsom said on Wednesday, warning Americans to “wake up” to what he described as Trump’s flagrant disregard for democratic norms. “I don’t think Donald Trump wants another election,” Newsom, a Democrat, said during a live interview at a summit hosted by Politico in Sacramento. “This guy doesn’t believe in free, fair elections.”
-
The White House has requested that a US military base on the outskirts of Chicago assist with immigration operations as the Trump administration plans a broader takeover of Democratic-run “sanctuary cities”. On Thursday, the Naval Station Great Lakes confirmed that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had reached out for assistance, telling the Associated Press that the DHS had requested “limited support in the form of facilities, infrastructure and other logistical needs to support DHS operations”.
-
The air force will provide military funeral honors to Ashli Babbitt, the rioter fatally shot during the January 6 Capitol attack, marking another step in Donald Trump’s aggressive rehabilitation of the attack.
-
A Washington senator has called for the Trump administration to provide “immediate answers” about reports that two firefighters were detained by border agents as they were responding to a wildfire in the state.
-
Seven people have arrived in Rwanda as part of a deal to accept deportees from the US, the Rwandan government has said. The Trump administration has been negotiating arrangements to send people to third countries including South Sudan and Eswatini, formerly Swaziland, as part of its wider deportation drive.
-
The family of 18-year-old Benjamin Guerrero-Cruz was shocked when they found out that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) had discreetly moved him out of California, according to California congresswoman Luz Rivas, who spoke with his relatives and reviewed federal detention records.