As of mid-2026, no one holds the CDC director job on a permanent, Senate-confirmed basis. NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya is temporarily performing the delegable duties of the position while continuing to run the National Institutes of Health, and Erica Schwartz, a former deputy surgeon general, has been nominated as the permanent director but has not yet received a Senate confirmation hearing.1CDC. CDC Director2Congress.gov. Nomination PN932 The agency has cycled through one withdrawn nominee, one confirmed director fired inside a month, and two acting directors since January 2025.
Who Is Running the CDC Right Now
Bhattacharya was appointed on February 18, 2026, to oversee the CDC on top of his existing job as NIH director, making him the third person to lead the agency in seven months.3New York Times. Bhattacharya Named Acting CDC Director4The Hill. Bhattacharya CDC NIH Leadership Concerns His authority is deliberately narrower than that of a normal acting director.
Under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998, an acting officer generally has 210 days to serve. That clock expired on March 26, 2026, 211 days after Susan Monarez was fired. Rather than name a new acting director, the administration reclassified Bhattacharya’s status to one “performing the delegable duties” of the position. Legal experts have explained that this label restricts him to nonexclusive functions; exclusive duties, such as formally adopting or rejecting recommendations from the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee, must now be handled by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.5The Hill. Trump Administration CDC Vacancy No legal challenge to the arrangement has been reported, though scholars have flagged that recent federal court rulings on similar workarounds at other agencies could invite one.6Bloomberg Law. White Houses Missed Deadline on CDC Pick Constrains Acting Role
Day-to-day operations are being managed by Bhattacharya in that limited capacity, alongside chief of staff Matthew Buzzelli and newly appointed chief operating officer Sean Slovenski, a former Walmart health executive.7CDC. CDC Leadership8Texas Tribune. Texas DSHS Jennifer Shuford Tapped for CDC Buzzelli is an attorney and former Department of Justice trial lawyer with no listed public health experience. Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester has called him “wholly unqualified” and questioned whether his designation as acting director at earlier points was legally permissible under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act.9Senator Blunt Rochester. Blunt Rochester Demands More Answers on CDC Leadership
The Pending Nominee: Erica Schwartz
President Trump nominated Schwartz on April 16, 2026. Her nomination was received in the Senate on April 21, 2026, and referred to the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. As of mid-2026, no confirmation hearing has been scheduled.10PBS NewsHour. Erica Schwartz Nominated To Be Next CDC Director2Congress.gov. Nomination PN932 Initial reactions from the public health community were described as “cautious optimism.”11STAT News. Erica Schwartz CDC Director Nominee Reaction
Two related appointments were announced the same day: Slovenski as principal deputy director and chief operating officer, and Dr. Jennifer Shuford, the Texas state health commissioner and infectious disease physician, as deputy director and chief medical officer. Shuford’s role does not require Senate confirmation.8Texas Tribune. Texas DSHS Jennifer Shuford Tapped for CDC
Schwartz’s confirmation is not automatic. The CDC director position has required Senate confirmation only since a 2022 omnibus spending law changed the rules; before that, the president appointed the director alone.12MedPage Today. CDC Director Will Now Require Senate Confirmation Monarez was the first director to go through the process.13ABC News. Senate Committee Advances Trumps Pick for CDC Director
How the Agency Got Here
Trump’s first pick was former Florida congressman Dave Weldon, nominated in November 2024. Weldon had a long history of questioning vaccine safety, including promoting disproven claims linking the MMR vaccine and thimerosal to autism. Republican senators Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, and HELP Committee chair Bill Cassidy expressed reservations, and the committee canceled a scheduled hearing less than an hour before it was to begin. The White House withdrew the nomination on March 13, 2025.14NPR. CDC Nominee Weldon Withdrawn Over Vaccine Concerns15NBC News. White House Pulls CDC Director Nomination
Susan Monarez, who had been serving as acting director since January 2025, was nominated next and confirmed on July 29, 2025, by a 51–47 vote.16Congress.gov. Nomination PN60-14, Susan Monarez Her tenure lasted less than a month. On August 27, 2025, HHS announced she was “no longer director.”17ABC News. Timeline of Turmoil at CDC In later Senate testimony, Monarez said Secretary Kennedy demanded that she provide blanket pre-approval for vaccine policy changes from a reconstituted advisory committee and that she fire career scientists. She refused. Kennedy told her he could not trust her; she replied that if he could not trust her, he could fire her.18NPR. CDC Director Susan Monarez Testimony Monarez initially argued that as a Senate-confirmed official only the president could remove her; the White House responded with a statement confirming she had been “terminated.” Three senior career officials resigned in response: Deputy Director Debra Houry, immunization center head Demetre Daskalakis, and emerging infections center director Daniel Jernigan.19ABC7 News. CDC Officials Escorted From Headquarters as Chaos Engulfs Agency
The day after Monarez’s firing, HHS Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill, a former biotechnology executive with no medical background, was named acting director. Reporting described him as rarely present at CDC headquarters, delegating most of his duties to Sam Beyda, a recent college graduate and former staffer for Elon Musk’s DOGE initiative who had been installed as a political appointee in the director’s office.20New York Times. Jim ONeill Named Acting CDC Director21NPR. CDC Turmoil and the Director Vacancy O’Neill’s last day at HHS was February 13, 2026, and Bhattacharya was appointed five days later.22Healio. HHS Confirms Acting Director Jim ONeill Out at CDC3New York Times. Bhattacharya Named Acting CDC Director
Empty Seats Across the Agency
The director’s office is not the only gap at the top. As of April 2026, 80 percent of the CDC’s top director-level positions were unfilled. Directors of 20 out of 25 CDC centers had resigned or been removed since Kennedy became HHS secretary in February 2025, according to data compiled by the CDC Data Project.23The Guardian. CDC Leadership Positions Empty Under RFK Jr
The principal deputy director post has been vacant since Ralph Abraham, the former Louisiana surgeon general who had ordered his state health department to stop promoting mass vaccination, resigned in February 2026 citing family obligations after serving less than two months.24U.S. News. CDC Says Ralph Abraham Steps Down as Principal Deputy Director23The Guardian. CDC Leadership Positions Empty Under RFK Jr21NPR. CDC Turmoil and the Director Vacancy25STAT News. CDC Director Nominee Faces Problems Beyond Senate Confirmation
Where the HHS Secretary Fits In
The CDC sits within the Department of Health and Human Services. The director draws regulatory authority primarily from the Public Health Service Act of 1944, which empowers the agency to make and enforce rules to prevent the interstate and international spread of communicable diseases, including quarantine and inspection powers.26National Center for Biotechnology Information. Federal Isolation and Quarantine Authority In practice the HHS secretary sits above the director and can exert substantial authority over staffing, advisory committees, and policy direction.
That authority has been used aggressively. In June 2025, Kennedy fired every member of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and replaced them with his own selections, a group that included vaccine skeptics.27PBS NewsHour. How RFK Jrs Hand-Picked CDC Advisory Panel Voted With Bhattacharya limited to delegable duties, the exclusive functions of the director, including the formal adoption or rejection of ACIP recommendations, now fall to Kennedy directly.6Bloomberg Law. White Houses Missed Deadline on CDC Pick Constrains Acting Role In June 2026, STAT News reported the CDC was working to establish a new “Executive Advisory, Science, and Operations Unit” that would review scientific publications, including the flagship Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, before release. The proposed unit would report to the chief of staff rather than to scientists; as of late June 2026, funding had not been secured.28STAT News. CDC Plans New Science Office for Tighter Political Control
Until Schwartz is confirmed or a new arrangement is announced, the practical answer to who is in charge of the CDC is layered: Bhattacharya on the delegable duties, Kennedy on the exclusive ones, and a small group of appointees, including Buzzelli, Slovenski, and Shuford, running the building.