Courtney Parella Spencer

Assistant Secretary of Public Affairs at @HHSGov. Former Comms at @USDOL, @CLFSuperPAC/@AAN, @NRCC, Trump 2020 Campaign, & US House of Reps.

[Secretary Kennedy @SecKennedy]

Today we filed a motion asking the First Circuit to expedite our appeal of the district court's order in the AAP lawsuit that left ACIP—the nation's vaccine advisory committee—without a quorum. AAP opposes our motion.

I've been consistent from day one: I do not want to take vaccines away from anyone. Our policy changes preserved access and coverage.

But the court's order has left ACIP unable to carry out its core responsibilities. As a result, the committee cannot issue new recommendations, review newly approved vaccines, or complete important work ahead of the fall flu season.

A functioning ACIP is essential to ensuring that vaccine recommendations remain grounded in evidence and available to the families and providers who rely on them.

Families, physicians, insurers, and public health programs deserve certainty—not paralysis.

That's why we're asking for expedited review. Our appeal seeks to restore a functioning ACIP so the vaccine recommendation process can continue, and families, physicians, and public health programs have the guidance they need.

[HHS Rapid Response @HHSResponse]

This is utterly false.

[DrOzCMS @DrOzCMS]

It's an honor to call you my boss and, most importantly, my friend! Thank you!

[HHS @HHSGov]

This Great Outdoors Month, we want you to GET OUTSIDE and GET ACTIVE! 🇺🇸

https://t.co/W5vJt20cK6

[Secretary Kennedy @SecKennedy]

Sheryl. Your article exemplifies the biased reporting we have come to expect from you and @nytimes. It was unfair, inimical, and inaccurate. All one needs to refute your argument is to glance at my publicly available calendar and to review my unprecedented list of accomplishments on a wide range of issues, all of which I drove. You evidently never undertook these foundational due diligences. Why let facts obscure a good story?

You fault me for missing a couple of monthly counselor meetings. However, I meet one-on-one with my counselors every day to decide policy and strategy. We schedule the monthly meetings to give the divisions a chance to keep each other informed about HHS-wide policies with which I’m already intimately familiar. Had you read my calendar, you would have seen that I have back-to-back meetings all day, every day, with both career and political staff, with my counselors and with outside stakeholders, interspersed with press conferences and other policy announcements.

I am knowledgeable and active on every issue in every division of my department, and I always make the final decisions. I meet with the principals at FDA, NIH, CDC, and my senior counselor every morning, something, I’m told, is unprecedented in HHS history. I try to get out of the office between 4:30 and 6:00 PM, so that I can spend three hours, in quiet, responding to emails. I normally work until 11 PM every night, mostly on phone calls to staff.

In order to prove your preconceived case for my disengagement, you quote anonymous employees, some of whom I fired or who quit to avoid being fired. You also deceptively quote HHS employees without identifying whether they were among those I fired, thereby depriving your readers of the opportunity to make an independent judgment about their credibility.

I came into this job to change the culture of a broken agency that has presided over the worst decline in public health in American history. Of course I fired people—lots of them! It's an easy task for even the laziest journalist, to comb that flotsam and jetsam for malevolence toward the Trump administration. And of course, this species of journalist will always be able to find disgruntled individuals among the 70,000 employees of the Department from whom to cherry pick "facts" to flesh out a preordained hit piece. All that is required for this brand of journalism is the ethical elasticity that you seem to have in spades. You had a preconceived thesis, and you set out to prove it. This is a widely accepted technique in journalism today, but I grew up in an era when it would not have been tolerated by the New York Times.

Ultimately, God puts us all on this earth to search for existential truths. I've tried to instill this mission at HHS by implementing gold standard research to end the regime of politicized science that COVID exposed to the American public. There was a time that journalists were proud to be the fearless and uncompromising champions of truth. Standards have devolved, and journalism is dead. The Times now employs propagandists. Your capitulation to partisanship further compounds your journalistic challenges; since we all are aware of your predictable bias, we at HHS are unwilling to talk to you about the topics that are important. The fact that you have minimal access to decision makers leaves you covering trivia and relying on your own capacity for invention.

Btw. When I took this job, the building was empty. About 90% of the employees were not coming to work. I changed that, but your newspaper never covers my reforms. Nor did you cover the fact that my predecessor almost never showed up for work here during his four years in office. When we came in, there were still artifacts from the first Trump administration in many of our office drawers because no one showed up for work during the Biden years. Just as Rochelle Walensky spent her entire term as CDC Director in Cambridge, Xavier Becerra reportedly spent most of his term as HHS Secretary in California. (I live in California, but I’ve only been there once in fifteen months).

His only notable accomplishments here were losing 300,000 children, referred to HHS for custody and care, to human traffickers and drug runners, encouraging transgender surgeries, and disabling the entire program-integrity apparatus, allowing hundreds of billions of dollars of theft from my agency. I have set out to find the children Becerra lost. He is now the front-runner for the governor of California. These are not invented stories; they are genuine scandals that the Times will never cover, presumably, because the malefactors are Democrats.

Finally, you criticize me for spending time with the Indian tribes in Alaska. I consider that part of my job. I run the Indian Health Services, and I’ve had unprecedented success in transforming IHS from a backwater to a top priority for this department. I’ve made more trips to Indian country and to Indian health clinics and hospitals than any HHS secretary in history, and I’ve brought Indians into high positions on the sixth floor for the first time in agency history. This is another success story that the Times will never cover.

[Kush Desai @KushDesai47]

Prices for haircuts, oil changes, and your AM coffee are all stated clearly and transparently.

Why aren't prices for what your hospital is going to charge you for a medical procedure?

A fair and competitive market - and informed decision-making - requires price transparency.

[Secretary Kennedy @SecKennedy]

For years, hospitals kept Americans in the dark about the true cost of care. Families made medical decisions without knowing the price—and too often got hit with bills that drained their savings.

That ends now.

Under President Trump’s leadership, HHS is enforcing hospital price transparency with real consequences. @DrOzCMS and I have a simple message for hospitals: Post your actual prices. Come into compliance immediately—or face serious consequences.

[HHS Rapid Response @HHSResponse]

Poor nutrition is estimated to cost America over $1.1 TRILLION annually.

Under @SecKennedy's MAHA initiatives, @HHSGov is encouraging medical schools, health systems, and policymakers to make nutrition and prevention a core component for patient care.

[HHS @HHSGov]

🚨 HUGE 🚨

73 medical schools have now joined the Trump administration’s Nutrition Education Pledge after 19 schools signed on today.

Nutrition is a powerful tools to prevent and treat chronic disease. Thanks to @POTUS, medical education is starting to reflect that reality. 🇺🇸

[HHS @HHSGov]

MAKE AMERICA HEALTHY AGAIN!

Today, HHS and @usedgov announced landmark commitments to expand nutrition in medical education across training, accreditation, and licensing. 🩺📚🍎

[Rapid Response 47 @RapidResponse47]

.@SecKennedy announces "several major reforms that will help reshape the future of American medicine."

— 9 of the nation's leading medical accreditors, certifying boards, testing organizations and educational institutions are taking action to put nutrition back at the center of medical education

— 19 additional medical schools have signed the Trump Administration's nutrition education pledge

[Secretary Kennedy @SecKennedy]

Bottom line: EAT REAL FOOD.

[HHS @HHSGov]

NOT TIRED OF WINNING 🇺🇸

[The White House @WhiteHouse]

We remember the fallen.
We honor their sacrifice.
We cherish the freedom they paid for with their lives.

Memorial Day 2026 | Arlington National Cemetery 🇺🇸

[Steve Guest @SteveGuest]

BREAKING: “The U.S. Department of Labor today announced an enforcement action against Cloudera Inc. following the allegations that it violated the Immigration and Nationality Act by unlawfully discriminating against hiring American workers in favor of foreign labor.”

“This action follows evidence obtained by the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division alleging Cloudera engineered a non-functional recruitment process that prevented qualified American workers from applying for high-paying technology positions while certifying to ETA that no qualified U.S. workers were available.”

https://t.co/g3py67pZIh

[The White House @WhiteHouse]

Strong families, a stronger America. 🇺🇸

President Trump is lowering costs, expanding access to fertility care, and putting moms and families FIRST.

[The White House @WhiteHouse]

President Trump announces NEW initiatives to lower costs, expand access to fertility care, & deliver meaningful support for moms!🇺🇸

✅New guidance to expand employer fertility benefits
✅Launch of https://t.co/tYjtEdB7zZ
✅Major childcare reforms to boost access & affordability

[Rapid Response 47 @RapidResponse47]

https://t.co/iT3gokB6a8 ❤️

[U.S. Department of Labor @USDOL]

TRUST IN TRUMP! 🇺🇸

[The White House @WhiteHouse]

First Lady Melania Trump writes an inspiring message on motherhood & the values that shape our nation. ❤️

"Together, let’s champion a new American model that restores the honor of motherhood by encouraging ALL women to lead boldly at work while also making family the cornerstone of our national future."