Today in one sentence: More than 1,000 current and former HHS employees called on Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to resign, warning he “continues to endanger the nation’s health” and is “compromising the health of this nation”; Florida plans to become the first state to end all childhood vaccine mandates, including for children attending public school; California, Washington, and Oregon formed the West Coast Health Alliance to set their own vaccine guidance, saying the CDC could no longer be trusted under the Trump administration; Trump called the effort to release the Jeffrey Epstein files a “Democrat hoax that never ends” as nearly a dozen women stood at the Capitol detailing how Epstein abused them as teenagers; federal judge ordered the Trump administration to unfreeze about $2.2 billion in Harvard research grants; House Republicans voted to form a new subcommittee to re-investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol; and Newsmax sued Fox News.

1/ More than 1,000 current and former HHS employees called on Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to resign, warning he “continues to endanger the nation’s health” and is “compromising the health of this nation.” In a letter to him and Congress, the signatories cited Kennedy’s firing of CDC Director Susan Monarez, the resignations of four senior CDC leaders, and appointments they called “political ideologues who pose as scientific experts.” They urged Trump and Congress to replace him, saying the nation’s health policy must be “informed by independent and unbiased peer-reviewed science.” HHS, meanwhile, responded that “the CDC has been broken for a long time” and that restoring trust will take “sustained reform and more personnel changes,” adding that Kennedy and his team have “accomplished more than any health secretary in history […] to Make America Healthy Again.” (ABC News / CNN / Axios / USA Today / The Hill)

2/ Florida plans to become the first state to end all childhood vaccine mandates, including for children attending public school. Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, a longtime vaccine skeptic, said children would no longer need shots for measles, mumps, chickenpox, polio, and hepatitis, calling mandates “wrong and drips with disdain and slavery” and asking, “Who am I to tell you what your child should put in their body?” Gov. Ron DeSantis said he would work with lawmakers to repeal mandates in state law. Vaccination rates in Florida, meanwhile, have already fallen to 89% among kindergartners, below the 95% needed to block measles outbreaks, with exemptions rising to 5%. CDC data shows routine vaccines have prevented 508 million illnesses, 32 million hospitalizations, and 1.13 million child deaths since 1994. “It’s a very troubling development,” Columbia University professor James Colgrove said. “It’s probably going to be catastrophic. Anyone who knows anything about public health can see this is a train wreck.” (Washington Post / The Guardian / NPR / CNBC / New York Times / Associated Press / Axios / NBC News / CNN / Wall Street Journal)

3/ California, Washington, and Oregon formed the West Coast Health Alliance to set their own vaccine guidance, saying the CDC could no longer be trusted under the Trump administration. The states said the agency had become “a political tool that increasingly peddles ideology instead of science,” warning its dismantling was “placing lives at risk” and that politicizing vaccine guidance “undermines public trust at precisely the moment we need it most.” Health and Human Services, meanwhile, claimed that the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices “remains the scientific body guiding immunization recommendations” and promised “Gold Standard Science, not the failed politics of the pandemic.” In June, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired all 17 members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel and replaced them with several vaccine skeptics, saying a “clean sweep” was needed to restore “public confidence in vaccine science.” (Associated Press / CNN / New York Times / STAT News / Axios / NBC News / Axios)

4/ Trump called the effort to release the Jeffrey Epstein files a “Democrat hoax that never ends” as nearly a dozen women stood at the Capitol detailing how Epstein abused them as teenagers. “We are real human beings. This is real trauma,” Haley Robson said, a registered Republican, inviting Trump to meet her face-to-face. Another survivor, Chauntae Davies, said Epstein’s “biggest brag forever was that he was very good friends with Donald Trump.” The women backed a bipartisan measure from Reps. Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna to force the Justice Department to release all records within 30 days. “I only need two [more] of 200 Republicans,” Massie said, noting four have signed so far. Speaker Mike Johnson, meanwhile, opposed the petition as “poorly written” and pointed to the Oversight Committee’s release of 33,000 documents this week that critics said were “97 percent” already public. (ABC News / The 19th / Associated Press / New York Times / Washington Post / CNN / NBC News / NPR / CNBC / Wall Street Journal / The Hill / Politico)

⏭️ Notably Next: Trump’s D.C. police takeover authority ends Sept. 9; Congress has 27 days to pass a funding measure to prevent a government shutdown; and the 2026 midterms are in 426 days.

✏️ Notables.

  1. A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to unfreeze about $2.2 billion in Harvard research grants and vacated all freezes and terminations issued since April. Judge Allison Burroughs said the Trump administration’s actions violated the First Amendment, Title VI, and the APA, writing that officials “used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country’s premier universities.” She added there was “little connection between the research affected by the grant terminations and antisemitism,” and barred similar funding actions in retaliation for protected speech. The White House condemned the ruling and said it would appeal, saying “Harvard does not have a constitutional right to taxpayer dollars.” (NBC News / ABC News / Bloomberg / New York Times / Wall Street Journal / Washington Post)

  2. A federal appeals court blocked Trump from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members, ruling there was “no invasion or predatory incursion.” The majority said illegal migration “is not the modern-day equivalent of sending an armed, organized force,” while Judge Andrew Oldham dissented that the decision “contravenes over 200 years of legal precedent.” The Department of Homeland Security, meanwhile, said “unelected judges are undermining the will of the American people.” (CNN / Washington Post / NBC News / NPR / Axios)

  3. The Trump administration carried out a strike on a small boat in the southern Caribbean, killing 11 people it called Tren de Aragua “narco-terrorists,” though it gave no legal authority and showed no proof the boat carried drugs. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, nevertheless, said they “knew exactly who was in that boat,” and Secretary of State Marco Rubio added “what will stop them is when we blow them up,” because it “will happen again.” (NPR / CNN / Bloomberg / Washington Post / New York Times)

  4. Trump said he may send federal troops to New Orleans, even though city officials reported crime has dropped to near 50-year lows. “We’ll straighten that out in about two weeks,” Trump said, while Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry added that “We will take President @realDonaldTrump’s help from New Orleans to Shreveport!” New Orleans leaders rejected the idea, calling it unnecessary and pointing to “a significant reduction in crime” from existing federal and state cooperation. (NPR / New York Times / Politico / NBC News / Axios / Washington Post / Wall Street Journal)

  5. The Pentagon canceled Sen. Mark Warner’s classified visit to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency after Laura Loomer attacked him and the agency’s director online. Warner, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office blocked the trip and asked, “How did a trolling blogger get access that there was a classified meeting going on?” Loomer took credit, claiming without evidence that “Deep State actors” were trying to “sabotage Trump under the Trump admin.” (Washington Post / New York Times)

  6. Trump’s advisers privately discussed offering New York City Mayor Eric Adams a federal job to push him out of the mayor’s race. A Department of Housing and Urban Development position was reportedly floated, though Adams’s campaign said “at no time” was he offered one. Adams, who was indicted last year on bribery and campaign finance charges but Trump’s Justice Department ordered the case dropped, is polling in the single digits and removing him could give Andrew Cuomo a clearer path to consolidate support against Zohran Mamdani. (New York Times/ New York Magazine / Politico)

  7. Trump’s Justice Department asked two Missouri clerks for access to Dominion voting machines from 2020 – both refused. One clerk said, “I just told him we upgraded our machines,” while the other warned it was “punishable by Federal charges to allow unauthorized access or tampering to election equipment.” The DOJ and White House declined to explain why federal officials were seeking old machines tied to Trump’s false claims of a stolen election. (Washington Post)

  8. House Republicans voted to form a new subcommittee to re-investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, giving Rep. Barry Loudermilk subpoena power and a mandate to issue a report by 2026. Loudermilk claimed the prior Democratic panel contained “more politics than there was truth,” while Speaker Mike Johnson vowed to “uncover the full truth.” Rep. Jamie Raskin, meanwhile, called the effort “House Republicans’ ongoing complicity” and pointed to “the constantly growing criminal records” of rioters Trump pardoned. (Washington Post / Politico / The Hill)

  9. Newsmax sued Fox News, accusing them of running an “exclusionary scheme” to “maintain its dominance” in “right-leaning pay TV” that resulted “in suppression of competition […] that harms consumers.” The lawsuit cited internal Fox messages where Tucker Carlson warned that “an alternative like Newsmax could be devastating to us,” Fox News president Jay Wallace said the network was on “war footing,” and Rupert Murdoch wrote that Newsmax “should be watched.” (Variety / Associated Press / CNN)

Four years ago today: Day 227: "Almost un-American."
Five years ago today: Day 1323: "Playing with fire."