Internal emails show how RFK Jr.'s team sought to sway the CDC

A trove of newly released internal emails offers a new look at how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention navigated some of the most controversial public health decisions of President Trump's second term — and, at times, chafed at pressure from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his team. The emails span from the administration's early days — when HHS sought to shut down a flu vaccine advertising campaign — to the dramatic firing of CDC Director Susan Monarez last August. They were formally released Thursday by Democrats on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which said it obtained them from Dr. Debra Houry, the CDC's former chief medical officer who resigned after Monarez was ousted. The committee's ranking member, independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, argued the emails show Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic, "prioritized politics over public health, ignored expert guidance, and endangered people, particularly children." CBS News has reached out to HHS for comment. Request to pull flu vaccine ads "came directly from" RFK Jr. …