The Latest: Trump fired CDC Director Susan Monarez himself, White House says
The director of the nation’s top public health agency, Susan Monarez, was fired by President Donald Trump himself late Wednesday because she wasn’t “aligned with the president’s mission” and refused to resign, according to the White House press secretary. Monarez’s lawyers said she was targeted for standing up for science.
Four other agency leaders resigned on Wednesday. “We knew … if she leaves, we don’t have scientific leadership anymore, ” one of the officials, Dr. Debra Houry, told The Associated Press on Thursday. “We were going to see if she was able to weather the storm. And when she was not, we were done.”
Meanwhile, the Trump administration asked a military base outside Chicago for support on immigration operations this week, offering a clue of what an expanded law enforcement crackdown might look like in the nation’s third-largest city.
Also, Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook has sued the Trump administration in an effort to overturn the president’s attempt to fire her, launching an unprecedented legal battle that could significantly reshape the Fed’s longstanding political independence.
The Latest:
Rubio heads to Latin America on his fourth trip in Western Hemisphere as top US diplomat
Secretary of State Marco Rubio will travel to Mexico and Ecuador next week, making his fourth foreign trip in the Western Hemisphere since becoming President Donald Trump’s top diplomat in January.
Rubio, who has already traveled Latin America and the Caribbean twice and twice to Canada this year, will return to the region to discuss Trump administration priorities including stemming illegal migration, combating organized crimes and drug cartels and countering what the U.S. believes is malign Chinese behavior.
Rubio’s “fourth trip to our hemisphere demonstrates the United States’ unwavering commitment to protect its borders, neutralize narco-terrorist threats to our homeland, and ensure a level playing field for American businesses,” the State Department said Thursday.
Rubio will be in Mexico City and Quito between Sept. 2 and Sept. 4, the department said.
US announces $825M arms sale to Ukraine for extended range missiles and guidance systems
The Trump administration has approved a nearly $1 billion arms sale to Ukraine that will include extended range missiles and related equipment to boost its defensive capabilities as U.S. efforts to broker peace between Ukraine and Russia appear stalled.
The State Department announced Thursday that it had notified Congress of the sale of $825 million worth of extended range attack munition missiles and navigation systems for Ukraine. The sale will cover 3,350 ERAM missiles, 3,350 GPS units along with components, spare parts and other accessories as well as training and technical support. It said Ukraine would use funding from NATO allies Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway in addition to U.S. foreign military financing to pay for the equipment.
“This proposed sale will support the foreign policy and national security objectives of the United States by improving the security of a partner country that is a force for political stability and economic progress in Europe,” the department said in a statement.
The sale was announced as Russia continues to step up attacks on Ukraine even after President Donald Trump met with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Alaska earlier this month to press for a negotiated settlement to the three-year-old conflict.
Gavin Newsom blasts Trump’s efforts to ‘militarize’ US cities
The California Democrat also called out crime rates in GOP-led states, holding up posters comparing their murder rates to California.
“If the president is sincere about the issue of crime and violence, there’s no question in my mind that he’ll likely be sending the troops into Louisiana and Mississippi to address the unconscionable wave of violence that continues to plague those states,” he said at a news conference in Sacramento.
The Trump administration deployed the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles after immigration protests broke out in June. Trump recently activated the National Guard in Washington and threatened to deploy troops to Chicago as part of a law enforcement crackdown.
“This country needs to wake up to what’s going on – not just the authoritarian tendencies but the authoritarian actions by this president,” Newsom said.
Vance says of Guard deployments that Trump is not ‘forcing this on anybody’
As the vice president promoted Trump’s tax breaks and spending cuts law in Wisconsin, he was asked about the administration’s deployment of the National Guard in the nation’s capital, which he defended.
Vance also pointed to Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser’s comments Wednesday that having more federal law enforcement officers on the capital’s street had helped.
“The President of United States is not going out there forcing this on anybody, though we do think that we have the legal right to clean up America’s streets if we want to,” Vance said.
Vance said the president wants mayors and governors across the U.S. to invite the federal government to come help them address crime in their cities and questioned why any of those officials have objected to a federal presence.
“Why is it that you have mayors and governors who are angrier about Donald Trump offering to help them than they are about the fact that their own residents are being carjacked and murdered in the streets? It doesn’t make an ounce of sense,” he said.
Vance says ‘there is going to be a time for politics’ and talking about preventing mass shootings
The vice president, who was speaking in Wisconsin to promote Trump’s sweeping tax breaks and spending cuts legislation, said a prayer on stage for the victims of Wednesday’s shooting in Minneapolis.
While Vance spoke about the power of prayer, said he was not going to speak Thursday about what might be done to prevent such a shooting.
“There is going to be a time for politics and there is going to be a time to figure out how to prevent this stuff from happening, how to make these shootings less common in our country,” Vance said. “And I’m not going to speak about that now.”
But Vance praised first lady Melania Trump’s statement earlier Thursday about mental health also said he thinks “it’s time we start asking some very hard questions about the root causes of this violence.”
Chicago prepares for possible military deployment as details remain scarce
Chicago’s top leaders are planning for the possibility of a military deployment to the nation’s third-largest city even though they don’t know what to expect.
The Trump administration has floated the idea of dispatching the National Guard to help with crime. But details are scarce.
City leaders say they’re preparing for more immigration arrests, a focus on homeless encampments and street patrols.
“We don’t want to raise any fears,” Police Superintendent Larry Snelling said Thursday.
City workers were circulating know-your-rights cards in neighborhoods with heavy immigrant populations, which offer tips on what to do in case of an encounter with an immigration agent.
Snelling asked for more communication on plans involving law enforcement.
What polling shows about Trump’s pivot from immigration to crime
President Donald Trump’s recent focus on crime in D.C. and other big cities came as views of his handling of immigration — the early focus of his second term — had been souring, a new AP analysis shows.
Trump’s approach to crime is now a clear strength for him, according to new AP-NORC polling.
About half of U.S. adults approve, higher than support for his handling of immigration. Only 44% currently approve of his approach to immigration, down slightly from 49% in March.Trump has deftly used similar tactics throughout his political career to dominate news cycles and redirect public attention from sometimes politically damaging topics.
▶ Read more about Trump’s pivot to crime
Kennedy won’t say why CDC director was ousted
The health secretary, speaking at a press conference in Texas, only took one question from reporters on the chaos unfolding at the CDC.
Confirming that CDC Director Susan Monarez was “let go” he warned that more firings could be on the way.
“There’s a lot of trouble at the CDC and it’s going to require getting rid of some people over the long term, in order for us to change the institutional culture,” Kennedy said.
He declined to elaborate on what was behind Monarez’s ousting after mere weeks on the job.
Trump spokesperson criticizes both Putin and Zelenskyy after latest big Russian assault on Kyiv
Trump “was not happy about this news, but he was also not surprised,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said of Russia’s Thursday air assault on Kyiv that left at least 21 dead and injured dozens more.
Leavitt noted that Ukraine has also launched effective assaults on Russia’s oil industry in recent weeks.
“Perhaps, both sides of this war are not ready to end it themselves,” Leavitt said. “The president wants it to end, but the leaders of these two countries…must want it to end as well.”
Vance says Trump is ‘in good shape’ but adds he’s ready to be president if ‘there’s a terrible tragedy’
The vice president, in an interview with USA Today, said Trump is in “incredibly good health” and has “incredible energy” and described the president as working late at night and early in the morning.
“I feel very confident the president of the United States is in good shape, is going to serve out the remainder of his term and do great things for the American people,” Vance said in the interview.
But he said he was ready to step in as president if “there’s a terrible tragedy,” saying, “I can’t think of better on the job training than what I’ve gotten over the last 200 days.”
White House says Trump fired the CDC director himself
During her briefing with reporters, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Susan Monarez was asked by the administration’s health secretary, Robert Kennedy Jr., to resign and she said she would but “then said she wouldn’t.”
“So the president fired her, which he has every right to do,” Leavitt said.
Leavitt said a statement released by Monarez’s lawyers “made it abundantly clear that she was not aligned with the president’s mission to Make America Healthy Again.” She said a replacement for Monarez would be announced by Trump and Kennedy soon.
Leavitt said she didn’t have knowledge about more changes coming to the CDC, but noted that top officials left when Monarez did.
Leavitt thanks DC mayor for cooperating with the White House
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt thanked Washington, D.C., Mayor Bowser for her “cooperation and her willingness to help us make DC safe and beautiful.”
Bowser has tried to show deference to Trump while also recognizing anxieties within the city.
Bowser said Tuesday that while the federal surge has helped reduce crime, it has also led to a “break in trust between, police and community, especially with new federal partners.”
Trump himself has previously threatened to take over the city if Bowser didn’t “get her act straight.”
Trump will deliver address to United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 23
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced the president’s planned speech to the annual gathering of global leaders at the start of her Thursday news briefing.
Trump administration subs Human Rights Council again
The United States will not take part in an upcoming council review of its human rights record scheduled for November, wrote Tressa Finerty, the U.S. charge d’affaires in Geneva, in a letter to the U.N. human rights chief, Volker Türk.
The Associated Press obtained a copy of the letter, which was dated Thursday.
The council examines the rights records of all 193 U.N. member countries about every four or five years, and the U.S. is due for its next review on Nov. 7.
Finerty said the decision followed an executive order in February by President Donald Trump announcing that the United States was withdrawing from the council, and that engagement in the review “would imply endorsement of the Council’s mandate and activities.”
The first Trump administration, citing the council’s alleged anti-Israel bias and refusal to reform, pulled the United States out in 2018, before the Biden administration brought the U.S. back. The United States still took part in the review process during Trump’s first term.
Obama: Trump’s expansion of military force on US soil puts ‘the liberties of all Americans at risk’
Former President Barack Obama lamented the “federalization and militarization of state and local police functions” in a social media post on X.
He shared a New York Times Opinion interview on the Trump administration’s growing comfort in wielding federal and local law enforcement to conduct its sweeping campaign of arrests against immigrants and criminals and whether it indicates a slide into authoritarianism.
The former president wrote that the “erosion of basic principles like due process and the expanding use of our military on domestic soil puts the liberties of all Americans at risk.”
Trump fires Democrat on Surface Transportation Board ahead of huge rail merger
Trump has fired one of two Democratic members of the U.S. Surface Transportation Board to break a 2-2 tie ahead of the board considering the largest railroad merger ever proposed.
Board member Robert Primus said on LinkedIn that he received an email from the White House last night terminating the position he’s held since he was appointed by Trump in his first term.
Primus said the firing is “deeply troubling and legally invalid,” so he plans to continue serving until he’s blocked and then will consider legal challenges.
The board is set to consider Union Pacific’s acquisition of Norfolk Southern in the next two years. It must then decide whether to approve the nation’s first transcontinental railroad, which would reduce the number of major freight railroads in the U.S. to five.
Georgia senator calls RFK Jr. ‘a quack’
“Yesterday’s events are yet more evidence that putting a quack like Bobby Kennedy in charge of public health was a grave error,” Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff said in a statement Thursday.
“The Trump Administration has been engaged for months in a campaign to destroy the CDC, America’s preeminent disease-fighting agency,” he added. “The Administration’s extremism and incompetence are putting lives at risk.”
RFK Jr. sang the CDC director’s praises less than a month before pushing her out
Trump’s health secretary was effusive in his praise of Susan Monarez when he helped swear her in as director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In an Aug. 1 post on X, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., wrote: ” @CDCMonarez is a public health expert with unimpeachable scientific credentials. I have full confidence in her ability to restore the @CDCgov ’s role as the most trusted authority in public health and to strengthen our nation’s readiness to confront infectious diseases and biosecurity threats.”
Kennedy declined to directly comment Thursday on Fox and Friends on her ouster and the resignations of four other top agency officials, but expressed concerns that many more CDC staffers are not aligned with his and Trump’s health policies.
Marco Rubio say US ‘remains available’ for nuclear talks with Iran
The U.S. Secretary of State welcomed the announcement Thursday by the U.K., France and Germany to reimpose sanctions on Iran for failing to adhere to the 2015 nuclear deal.
The European countries triggered the “snapback” mechanism outlined in the original deal that would again freeze Iranian assets abroad, halt arms deals with Tehran and penalize any development of its ballistic missile program, among other measures. The sanctions are expected to further squeeze Iran’s reeling economy.
“The United States appreciates the leadership of our E3 allies in this effort,” Rubio’s statement said, while adding that the U.S. “remains available for direct engagement with Iran – in furtherance of a peaceful, enduring resolution to the Iran nuclear issue.”
“Snapback does not contradict our earnest readiness for diplomacy, it only enhances it,” Rubio said.
Departing CDC staff say Susan Monarez’s firing was the final straw
Two departing scientific leaders at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say they knew it was time to quit when the agency’s director was pushed aside.
“We knew … if she leaves, we don’t have scientific leadership anymore,” one of the officials, Dr. Debra Houry, told The Associated Press on Thursday.
Another official, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis said: “I came to the point personally where I think our science will be compromised, and that’s my line in the sand.”
Rwanda becomes third African nation to accept Trump’s deportees
Rwandan government spokesperson Yolande Makolo said Thursday that seven deportees arrived in the East African country earlier this month as the Trump administration expands its program to send migrants to countries they have no ties with. No announcement was made at the time, and the government has not revealed their identities, nationalities, where they are being held and whether they have criminal records.
Makolo said the seven are being visited by United Nations representatives and Rwandan social services. She said three want to return to their home countries while the other four “wish to stay and build lives in Rwanda.”
South Sudan and Eswatini have already accepted a small number of deportees from the U.S. in what have also been secretive deals. Rwanda did say in early August that it had agreed to take up to 250 deportees but declined then to say when the first would arrive.
▶ Read more about the U.S. deportations to Africa
Wisconsin governor bemoans cost of ‘beautiful bill’ ahead of JD Vance visit
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers beat Vance to the punch ahead of the vice-president’s visit Thursday to promote Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.”
Evers says the new law will cost Wisconsin taxpayers more than $284 million between now and when it’s fully implemented in 2028. Most of that comes from the law’s new work requirements for participation in state’s FoodShare and Medicaid programs and the shifting of costs from the federal government to the state.
“Wisconsinites aren’t getting a fair shake from Republicans in Washington—that’s plain as day,” Evers said.
Vance plans to visit a steel fabrication facility near the Minnesota border, in a congressional district held by a Republican that is a priority for Democrats to flip in 2026.
Trump proposes pre-midterm Republican convention
The president posted Thursday that he’s “thinking of recommending a National Convention to the Republican Party, just prior to the Midterms.”
“It has never been done before. STAY TUNED!!!” he added in the Truth Social post.
Conventions are typically held during election years so that parties can formally nominate candidates following state primaries. They also give candidates tons of free media coverage and exposure.
Trump’s proposal comes a day after Axios reported that senior Democrats were considering holding their own national convention before the 2026 midterms “to showcase candidates and emerging leaders of the party.”
Trump, von der Leyen talk after Russia launches another massive attack on Kyiv
European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a post on X that she spoke on Thursday with both Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy following Thursday’s major air strike on Kyiv that killed at least 17.
“Putin must come to the negotiating table,” von der Leyen added. “We must secure a just and lasting peace for Ukraine with firm and credible security guarantees that will turn the country into a steel porcupine.”
Border czar says he doesn’t like masks, but ICE agents need them
Responding to the Washington, D.C. mayor’s suggestion that masks make agents less effective in fighting crime, Tom Homan said that wasn’t “based on data.”
“Criminals have been wearing masks for a long time,” Homan said, and federal agents need them as well to keep their identities, and those of their families, from being published online and jeopardizing their safety.
“I don’t particularly like masks, but the agents need the mask,” Homan said. “ICE agents are doing what they gotta do.”
