U.S. Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS), who is also a physician — an OB/GYN — was asked on Newsmax about President Donald Trump firing his own nominee, Dr. Susan Monarez, who served as the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for four weeks. At least four other CDC leaders subsequently resigned in protest over Monarez’s firing, including Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry.
Marshall replied to the question on Newsmax by criticizing all the Senate Democrats who didn’t vote for Monarez — “not one of them,” the Senator said.
Marshall added about the Democrats: “Now they’ve lost their mind again, why, because they have Trump-itis.”
[Democrats including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Friday called on the President to fire his Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. over the CDC leadership shakeup.]
About “the rest of the crew, who quit,” Marshall added: “This is the same group of so-called experts that told the entire country we should live in fear of monkeypox but failed to tell us that unless you’re a homosexual man you don’t have to worry about this at all, that monkeypox is a sexually transmitted disease.”
[NOTE: Monkeypox — now called Mpox by the medical community — is an infectious viral disease similar to smallpox. It can be sexually transmitted but also through direct contact with infected skin or body fluids.]
Sen. Roger Marshall on the CDC purge: "This is the same group of so-called experts that told the entire country we should live in fear of monkeypox, but failed to tell us that unless you're a homosexual man you don't have to worry about this at all, that monkeypox is a sexually… pic.twitter.com/TPmdndSWs9
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 2, 2025
During the 2022-2023 outbreak of monkeypox in the U.S., the CDC launched public awareness campaigns in order to reduce spread of the disease — an initiative Marshall interpreted as the agency telling people to “live in fear of monkeypox.”
At the time, CNN reported: “Anyone can get monkeypox, but in the latest outbreak, the virus is predominantly spreading among gay and bisexual men. Officials noted Monday that most of the people affected reported some level of sexual activity. That doesn’t mean the virus is sexually transmitted, but officials say it shows that prolonged skin-to-skin contact is one of the major ways monkeypox is now spreading.”
Dr. Demetris Daskalakis, a Biden appointee who served as deputy coordinator of the White House’s Mpox outbreak response, was one of the CDC leaders to quit after Monarez’s firing.
Monarez, a microbiologist and immunologist by training — and a longtime civil servant — was confirmed by the Senate vote 51-47 in a party line vote, as Marshall noted. NPR reports she was the first to serve in the role without a medical degree in more than 70 years.
