Senate Hearing on Susan Monarez Firing Turns Into Disaster for RFK Jr.
Susan Monarez’s calm, fact-based testimony clashed with Republican theatrics over phantom recordings and lawyer conspiracies, leaving RFK Jr. politically weakened.
When Susan Monarez walked into the Senate HELP Committee hearing on Wednesday, she was calm, professional, and devastatingly credible. Her testimony cut straight through weeks of dubious, if not stupid political bullshit.
“My tenure as CDC Director lasted 29 days,” Monarez told the panel in her opening remarks (prepared testimony). She then explained why: “Secretary Kennedy demanded two things of me that were inconsistent with my oath of office and the ethics required of a public official. He directed me to commit in advance to approving every ACIP recommendation regardless of the scientific evidence. He also directed me to dismiss career officials responsible for vaccine policy, without cause. He said if I was unwilling to do both, I should resign.”
She did not resign. She was fired. “I told the Secretary that if he believed he could not trust me, he could fire me,” she testified in that same statement.
During the remainder of the hearing and directly contradicting RFK Jr’s sworn testimony, she repeated the story several times. That statement alone set the stakes: a Senate-confirmed director said, under oath, she was removed because she refused to abandon scientific integrity for predetermined politically motivated outcomes.
A Phantom Tape and a Meltdown
What happened next should have been RFK Jr.’s political lifeline, his cover — GOP allies on the HELP committee pressing the witness trying to poke holes in her story. Instead, it devolved into a laughable clown show validating just how unserious his Republican defenders really are.
Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma went hardest and crashed the fastest. He accused Monarez of lying about her conversation with Kennedy, in the meeting where Kennedy fired her: “It was a recorded meeting, so you can testify one way, or you can prove that you’re lying … and I’m giving you the opportunity to be honest here, because you’ve been really walking around the edges and not being truthful,” Mullin said.
That was his big reveal: he said there was a recording of the conversation that would prove Monarez was misrepresenting it.
Except there wasn’t. Committee Chair Bill Cassidy pressed him in real time and asked for release of the recording. He said that if it doesn't exist, Mullin should retract his line of questions.
Bernie Sanders, the ranking Democrat on the committee said, “How does that happen, if it is true, that one senator has access to an alleged tape recording of a meeting? This is what we're dealing with right now. This is a very politicized situation, and it's unfortunate.”
Hours later, Mullin admitted to reporters that he was “mistaken.” Translation: he made it up.
Wasting Time on Lawyers
Senator Ashley Moody of Florida went in a different direction, but her approach was no less embarrassing. In my opinion, this freshman Senator might be able edge Tommy Tuberville out as the dumbest member of the Upper Chamber.
Instead of focusing on Monarez’s firing or the CDC’s direction, she fixated on who Monarez had hired as lawyers after leaving government.
According to CBS’s account, Moody claimed the attorneys are ‘anti-Trump’ and suggested without evidence that Monarez has a whole network of people who are trying to embarrass the president or go after the president.
Monarez’s answer was straightforward: she needed legal representation. She didn’t ask her lawyers about their politics.
The net effect of this asinine line of questioning was to waste time while proving nothing. If anything, it underscored just how inept and unprepared Kennedy’s allies were.
A political disaster
By the end of the day, it was clear who had credibility and who didn’t. Monarez came across as a seasoned, steady professional. She provided consistency, common sense, certainty and candor. Kennedy’s defenders, by contrast, concocted a harebrained gotcha strategy, leaned in on performative partisanship outrage, and in Mullin’s case, peddled a lie he was forced to retract.
If Kennedy wanted the hearing to restore trust, the opposite happened. His former director showed what it looks like to follow the science. His defenders showed what it looks like to stumble over their rhetorical inadequacies.
The news cycle to the rescue
RFK Jr. may have caught a break and the news cycle may have saved his job. Just a few hours after the hearing Fed. Chair Jerome Powell lowered interest rates by a 1/4 point. The media rightfully leaped onto that shiny object. Powell is desperately trying to save us from the Trump’s fucked up economy.
Hours later, chickenshit executives at ABC/Disney announced that they’re putting Jimmy Kimmel’s show on hold indefinitely. Factor in that the village idiot is currently in the UK having his political balls tickled by Prime Minster Keir Stamer, and you can see a scenario where RFK Jr temporarily avoids the chopping block.