Sources: Top Trump official out at CDC. Agency now without Chief of Staff or Acting Director.

Matthew Buzzelli is out as Chief of Staff. Also, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya is not actually the Acting Director of the CDC, despite his public claims.

The CDC’s Chief of Staff, Trump political appointee Matthew Buzzelli, will leave the agency, according to two current CDC officials who spoke to Inside Medicine on the condition of anonymity to protect their jobs.

A lawyer with no public health, medical, or scientific experience, Buzzelli entered the CDC in early 2025. He previously rose within President Trump’s ecosphere after being an early financial supporter of now-former US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. He was at times during the second Trump administration the top official at the CDC, despite a lack of relevant training, expertise, or experience.

Buzzelli did not, however, ever serve as the agency’s Acting Director, despite a false statement made by Secretary Kennedy on May 14, 2025. Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Delaware, asked Kennedy who the Acting Director of the agency was during a May 14, 2025 Senate hearing (while holding up a copy of Inside Medicine which had previously broken the news of the absence of an Acting Director on April 9, 2025).

Still, in the spring of the second Trump administration, Buzzelli was a primary powerbroker at the CDC, once Dr. Susan Mozarez left the Acting Director position, as was required when she was named the nominee for the permanent Director job. (She was later confirmed, but lasted 29 days before Secretary Kennedy fired her due to her unwillingness to support his vaccine policies.)

“He was the main interface between CDC and HHS in the early days,” a current CDC official told Inside Medicine. For example, Buzzelli oversaw—or at least rubber-stamped—the massive, arbitrary, counterproductive (and often illegal) “reductions in force” (RIFs) executed by DOGE. We’ve since learned what was largely suspected: CDC officials were not involved in RIF decisions, despite administration claims at the time.

CDC insiders said that Buzzelli will likely stay within HHS, possibly working on “special projects” for Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Other details are not known. A request for comment from HHS was not answered.

News of Buzzelli’s departure did not surprise the CDC officials who spoke to Inside Medicine. “He has really not been visible at this point for very many months,” one of them said.

In another sign of how little Buzzelli does at the CDC these days—a stark contrast to 2025—when I asked one former CDC official “What does he even do there these days?” the answer was a wry: “Correct.”

A new, dare we say, normal era at HHS?

This personnel shakeup is the latest in a series. In recent months, the CDC has welcomed a new Chief Medical Officer and a new Chief Operating Officer, both of whom were notable choices simply because they had relevant experience.

Those leadership changes came in the weeks after the Trump administration had begun making moves to keep HHS out of the headlines. For example, when President Trump’s new nominee for CDC Director, Dr. Erica Schwartz, was announced, HHS officials were refreshingly frank about their goal, saying, “We just need someone who’s not crazy.” Since then, the administration has elevated other experienced people, including Chris Klomp, who was recently promoted to second-in-command at HHS.

So, is Buzzelli’s departure from the CDC another example of this push for relative normalcy? Or does this move anticipate that Dr. Schwartz will soon be confirmed as the agency’s permanent Director. (She is slated to appear before the Senate HELP Committee tomorrow, a crucial step.) If confirmed, it’s likely that Schwartz would bring in her own people, including for a role like Chief of Staff.

Alternatively, is Buzzelli’s departure evidence that Secretary Kennedy’s minions are truly losing power at the CDC? That’s more difficult to say. Indeed, the agency’s CMO and COO positions are now held by qualified—dare we say normal—people, in contrast to the previous CMO, for example, who seemingly got the job because he held kooky beliefs favored by some anti-science elements in the administration. However, powerful Kennedy allies remain at the agency, including Stuart Burns, seen as a key figure in keeping anti-vaxxer projects afloat there.

The leadership vacuum continues. The CDC does not have an Acting Director. Yes, you read that right.

It seems to have escaped notice, but the CDC does not have an Acting Director. You could be excused for thinking otherwise, though.

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya frequently masquerades as the Acting Director, both in print and on television. In reality, he is, in the CDC’s words, “performing the delegable duties of the CDC Director.” When I recently asked an administration official whether Bhattacharya was Acting Director (despite the CDC’s website saying otherwise), I was told that “Jay is still performing the delegable duties” only.

This might seem like a detail, but it is not.

Oddly, Bhattacharya himself doesn’t merely fail to correct people who incorrectly apply the term to his current role. He also propagates the falsehood. In an opinion he authored in The Washington Post, Bhattacharya described himself as the “acting director.” (Surprisingly, in its byline for the essay, The Post described Bhattacharya as the “senior official carrying out the delegable duties of the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” And yet, it did not fact-check his claim of being Acting Director. The whole thing is puzzling coming from a man who led his essay with a statement on the importance of humility.

More importantly, though, why has the administration not granted Bhattacharya the Acting Director position while the Schwartz nomination process proceeds? HHS officials did not answer my question on this, implying that this would be a White House decision.

But the reason seems obvious: vaccine policy. That’s because, to my knowledge, the only duty that cannot be delegated to anyone other than the Acting or permanent CDC Director is signing off on vaccine policy votes recommended by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Indeed, in the absence of an Acting or permanent CDC Director, ACIP votes can only be accepted or rejected by the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

So, it makes sense that Kennedy would install Bhattacharya to perform most duties of the Acting Director, save this precise one. Indeed, it was Dr. Susan Monarez’s principled stance against Kennedy on ACIP votes that led to her firing. After that, the CDC’s Acting Director was Jim O’Neill, another Trump ally without relevant public health, medical, or scientific experience. (O’Neill was convenient in this way; when ACIP came up, he simply did what Kennedy told him to do, seemingly having no opinions of his own.) When O’Neill had to step down after 210 days (in March) due to federal vacancy rules, the agency was again left without an Acting Director. By then, the Trump administration’s endeavor to fill positions with non-crazy people (again, their own words), meant that another pure Trump ally was not on the menu.

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya was the perfect simp for the moment. By placing Bhattacharya at the top of the CDC with the exception of power on vaccines, Kennedy maintained maximal control over the issue he cares about most. This is precisely what I surmised over a year ago.

Bhattacharya, who is generally not an anti-vaxxer, has gleefully played along. Unlike some others in the administration, Bhattacharya is savvy enough to understand all of these realities. He’s fully capable of identifying a Kennedy lapdog in the mirror. Apparently, he just does not care.

Are more changes ahead?

The real issue is whether Dr. Erica Schwartz will be confirmed as the permanent CDC Director by the Senate and, if so, how long she will last in Kennedy’s HHS. She’s qualified, and she has the right view on vaccines. (Kennedy’s allies were incensed by the pick.) Indeed, Schwartz’s nomination has wide support among experts in the public health and medical communities, including, apparently from Senator Bill Cassidy, the physician who chairs the Senate HELP Committee—at least until January.

We’ll be following this story closely here at Inside Medicine.

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