| A high-ranking Republican senator will break with the Trump administration and hold a hearing with the CDC director who was fired by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. It’s the first time Senator Bill Cassidy will wield his powers as chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee to conduct any public oversight over Kennedy’s dramatic moves at the public health agency. Cassidy, who’s also a physician, is not the only Republican worried about Kennedy’s upending of longstanding policies and practices at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Senate HELP committee members Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski have also said they were concerned over Kennedy’s actions and called for oversight. Before a Senate Finance Committee hearing earlier this month, Senate Majority Leader John Thune weighed in to say Kennedy would face “hard questions.” Then at that hearing, Republicans Thom Tillis and John Barrasso sparred with Kennedy over vaccine policy and his cuts to the public health agency. Wednesday’s HELP hearing aims to dig into recent events at the CDC, including what happened in the days leading up to Susan Monarez’s ousting as CDC director. In prepared remarks, Monarez will describe how Kennedy asked her to preapprove all recommendations from his revamped vaccine panel “regardless of the scientific evidence” and to fire senior leaders on vaccine policy without cause. Both were requests that Monarez said she refused to do and Kennedy subsequently ousted her. Monarez laid out a similar version of events in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece published ahead of Kennedy’s appearance before the Senate Finance Committee. Kennedy said that Monarez lied and that he’d fired her because he told him she was untrustworthy, not because he asked her to approve vaccine recommendations. Monarez took the helm at CDC at the end of July following Senate confirmation, the first time that has been required for the role. In her 29-day tenure, she dealt with an attack on the agency that killed one local police officer. She and the CDC’s former chief medical officer Debra Houry will both tell senators about how Kennedy wanted all policy and staffing decisions at the CDC to be cleared by political staffers – one of the reasons Houry and two other senior leaders resigned. On Tuesday, an HHS spokesperson pushed back against Monarez’s version of events in her prepared testimony, saying she’d “acted maliciously” to undermine President Donald Trump’s agenda. Wednesday’s hearing isn’t the only oversight lever Cassidy can pull. Senators on his committee are expected to meet with Surgeon General nominee Casey Means this week, and any future CDC head would have to pass his committee for confirmation – two key health positions Cassidy could stall. But Cassidy’s in a tough place politically. He’s up for reelection next year and could face a tough primary challenger who’s a prominent supporter of Kennedy’s. He’s also walking a fine line with the Trump administration after voting to impeach the president in 2021. He and Senator Barrasso just penned an op-ed calling for the president to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for Operation Warp Speed, Trump’s achievement hastening the development and productions of vaccines during the Covid pandemic. Wednesday’s hearing will be a window into just how far Republicans are willing to go to rein in Kennedy. — Jessica Nix | 
