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On August 28, 2025, CDC employees gathered at the agency’s Atlanta headquarters to show support for senior colleagues leaving the agency. Although some headlines called it a walkout, staff described it as a “clap-out.” The gathering coincided with a dispute over CDC Director Susan Monarez’s status and a series of senior departures; the available accounts do not settle that dispute or independently establish every allegation made by the people involved.
Why the event was called a clap-out, not a walkout
Gizmodo reported that staff gathered at CDC headquarters in Atlanta on August 28, 2025, to support departing senior colleagues. The report described the event as a “clap-out” and said the Associated Press hosted a livestream. It did not provide a verified attendance total.
Some headlines and social posts used “walkout.” But staff told journalist Marisa Kabas that “clap-out” was the official description because federal employees could not strike or walk out on the job. That is the staff’s explanation as reported by Gizmodo, not an independent legal determination.
What was happening to CDC leadership
Gizmodo reported that at least five senior CDC employees had resigned or been fired since Wednesday, August 27. The report named Director Susan Monarez, Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry, Demetre Daskalakis, Daniel Jernigan, and another senior staff member in its account of the departures. It said Houry, Daskalakis, and Jernigan coordinated their resignations.
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Monarez’s departure was disputed. HHS announced that she was no longer leading the agency. Her lawyers said she had neither been fired nor resigned and argued that only the president could fire her. The accounts present competing claims; the reporting cited here does not resolve her employment status or the legal question.
At a briefing described by Gizmodo, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “the president has the authority to fire those who are not aligned with his mission.” Monarez’s attorney Mark S. Zaid offered a different account of her actions: “When CDC director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts, she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda.” Those are statements from the White House and Monarez’s lawyer, respectively, rather than a settled finding about what occurred.
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Why departing officials said they left
Houry, Daskalakis, and Jernigan
Houry said the three officials coordinated their resignations to make a stronger statement. She said: “We have reached the tipping point and we knew it was a powerful statement for the three of us to do this together.”
Daskalakis, identified in the report as director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, wrote in his resignation letter that he was “unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public’s health.” This explains his stated reason for resigning; it does not independently establish his characterization of agency policy.
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Monarez’s lawyers
Zaid and other attorneys representing Monarez said she was pressured to fire staff members and declined to endorse directives they characterized as unscientific and reckless. Those claims are the lawyers’ account, not an independently established explanation of the dispute.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.The wider context—and what the report does not establish
Gizmodo placed the departures amid broader federal job and funding cuts and disputes over vaccine policy. It also cited an NBC News report saying the CDC’s foodborne illness surveillance program had scaled back operations nearly two months earlier and was regularly monitoring two of the eight foodborne germs it had previously tracked. That figure is reported here through Gizmodo’s summary of NBC News, not from a separately reviewed NBC report.
The August 28 account documents a public show of support and reports competing explanations for the leadership changes. It does not establish a verified crowd size, resolve Monarez’s employment status, or independently confirm the claims made by departing officials and their representatives. It is a snapshot of events reported on that date, not a description of CDC leadership or operations today.
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