“If we have an agenda that we’re trying to implement and the people who are supposed to be implementing it don’t agree with that agenda, that’s not squashing dissent,” a White House official told the Washington Examiner. “There’s a difference between ‘The White House wants X, Y, Z to happen and the agency comes back and says, “Hey, we think Y might be an issue and Z is a little more complicated.”‘ There’s a difference between that and just opposing X, Y, Z entirely on ideological or political grounds.” 

But the firing of Monarez, whom Trump nominated to the position in March, comes after her reported refusal to implement directives from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. regarding reforms to vaccine policy and for seeking help from Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA).

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended Monarez’s firing on Thursday, telling reporters during her briefing that “this woman has never received a vote in her life, and the president has the authority to fire those who are not aligned with his mission.” 

Monarez is challenging her termination.

Her dismissal on Wednesday also came two days after at least 21 Federal Emergency Management Agency employees were put on paid administrative leave following more than 180 current and former counterparts signing an open letter criticizing the Trump administration’s disaster preparedness and response capabilities, including federal funding cuts and suppression of climate science. 

“President Trump was duly elected by the American people to run the executive branch of the United States. The Administration is committed to upholding this democratic mandate with appointees who are aligned with the agenda that the President was elected to implement,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement.

With Trump’s emphasis on loyalty and his high-profile attempts to push out federal government employees with whom he disagrees or has had some other problem, critics have raised concerns about the president surrounding himself with “yes men” and the consequences that could have on policy outcomes and service delivery.

Claremont McKenna College political professor John Pitney, a former Republican strategist, cited management theorist Peter Drucker, who wrote, “The first rule in decision-making is that one does not make a decision unless there is disagreement.”

“Internal debate is healthy: it enables policymakers to understand the costs and benefits of different courses of action,” Pitney told the Washington Examiner. “The alternative is groupthink, where the demand for conformity leads to ill-considered decisions and sometimes ends in calamity.”

For Pitney, the second Trump administration is particularly “vulnerable to groupthink” because, “in picking top officials, the president put personal loyalty ahead of policy expertise.” 

“The firings remind everybody that dissent is a one-way ticket to exile,” he said.

Still, the White House remains adamant that the administration’s policymaking process includes different opinions. The White House official told the Washington Examiner, “The level of dissent where you have reasoned debate, I don’t think that’s been squashed. That’s still a normal thing.”

Republican strategist Charlie Black also defended the administration’s policymaking process, saying it should “welcome honest opinions and conflicting advice, but they should be expressed in private.” 

“The FEMA employees made a mistake by going public,” Black told the Washington Examiner. “The CDC fiasco was a mistake by the [White House] and Secretary Kennedy in nominating and confirming a director whom they did not know and trust.”

Cesar Conda, another Republican strategist, supported Trump’s approach, pointing to his own experience in the federal government and how “the traditional interagency policymaking process often fails to produce timely and impactful policy outcomes.” 

“It tends to be slow, bureaucratic, and turf-conscious,” Conda told the Washington Examiner. “Federal bureaucrats care mostly about protecting their own budgets. Of course, administration officials should offer their opinions. But in the end, the president got elected by the people, and he gets to set priorities for the executive branch agencies that work for him, period.”

Trump’s approach to dissent is, in part, a product of his first administration, during which he complained that the deep state impeded his policy agenda. In response, White House Presidential Personnel Office director Sergio Gor has been implementing Trump’s federal workforce executive orders, including restoring merit-based hiring practices. The White House asked existing and prospective federal employees about their loyalty to Trump and, among other questions, their perspectives on Jan. 6 and the 2020 election.

Gor’s work is being complemented by the likes of Trump supporter Laura Loomer, who has been conducting her own due diligence related to federal employees, from holdover aides to the president’s own appointees, including Surgeon General nominee Janette Nesheiwat for her medical credentials and Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research Director Vinay Prasad for his past criticism of Trump, in addition to multiple White House National Security Council officials. Kennedy eventually intervened and had Prasad reappointed.

“Obviously, in an administration, you want people who are aligned with your agenda and your vision,” the White House official said. “I don’t think any administration has had Cabinet officials or Senate-confirmed people who are thoroughly opposed to everything the administration is doing, especially in their issue area.”

On whether other federal employees who disagree with Trump publicly or privately should fear for their jobs, Leavitt urged them to “just do your job.”

“If you’re doing your job well and if you are executing on the vision and the promises that the president made to the public who elected him back to this office, then you should have no fear about your job,” she told reporters. “That’s what this president wants to see. He wants to see people solving problems. He wants to see the people who have the privilege of serving the American taxpayer in the federal government abiding by the wishes of the American taxpayers who overwhelmingly reelected him and this Cabinet to make America great again, or in this case, make America healthy again.”

Monarez’s disputed firing comes after Trump’s attempts to terminate Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook over allegations that she committed mortgage fraud. Cook, who has not been charged or convicted of a crime, is suing the Trump administration over her dismissal. Trump, too, ousted Bureau of Labor Statistics Director Erika McEntarfer after her agency announced last month it was revising May and June’s jobs reports. 

“The issue with BLS was a confidence thing, and there are long-standing issues there that they weren’t making any effort to resolve,” the White House official said, referring to BLS’s survey methodology on which it relies for its jobs reports.

Of the FEMA employees on administrative leave, an agency spokesperson told the Washington Examiner at the time, “It is not surprising that some of the same bureaucrats who presided over decades of inefficiency are now objecting to reform.” 

“Change is always hard,” the source said. “It is especially for those invested in the status quo, who have forgotten that their duty is to the American people, not entrenched bureaucracy.”

Trump’s approach to dissent has similarly been demonstrated in his posture toward perceived political opponents, news organizations, and even educational institutions.

TRUMP LEVERAGES WHITE HOUSE POWER WITH RED-STATE REDISTRICTING AND MAIL BALLOT PUSH

“Why is it that ABC and NBC FAKE NEWS, two of the absolute worst and most biased networks anywhere in the World, aren’t paying Millions of Dollars a year in LICENSE FEES,” Trump asked on social media this week. “They should lose their Licenses for their unfair coverage of Republicans and/or Conservatives, but at a minimum, they should pay up BIG for having the privilege of using the most valuable airwaves anywhere at anytime!!! Crooked ‘journalism’ should not be rewarded, it should be terminated!!!”

“We want nothing less than $500 million from Harvard. Don’t negotiate, Linda,” Trump told Education Secretary Linda McMahon during this week’s Cabinet meeting. “They’ve been very bad. Don’t negotiate.”