Those who watched Donald Trump’s campaign stump speeches during the 2024 race know that he had a habit of straying from the script in his teleprompter. There were, however, a few lines he never forgot to deliver.
Take this one, for example: “I will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate.”
The Republican pushed the line in Wisconsin. And Michigan. And Florida. And Washington, D.C. And Texas, Minnesota, and New Jersey. And Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, and Virginia. In fact, Trump has made the same declaration, word for word, for over a year.
For months, there was some discussion about whether he was referring specifically to Covid vaccine mandates or all vaccine mandates, and his political operation never made much of an effort to clarify matters. The public was only told that Trump intended to apply his policy to all public education “from kindergarten through college.”
Nearly a month into the president’s second term, he’s now followed through on his misguided campaign vow. The Hill reported:
President Trump signed an executive order Friday to defund schools and other education agencies that require COVID-19 vaccines for students and staff. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the head of the Department of Education are directed to create a plan to end these mandates and end federal funding for entities that do not comply.
At first blush, this might sound alarming, but an Associated Press report highlighted a highly relevant detail: “The order is expected to have little national impact because COVID-19 vaccine mandates have mostly been dropped at schools and colleges across the United States, and many states have passed legislation forbidding such mandates.”The grand total of states requiring Covid vaccines for students and staff is zero. Of course, across the country, school districts require children to be fully immunized against, among other things, polio, measles, hepatitis B, chickenpox, diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis before they can attend classes. These policies have existed for years; they’ve been incredibly effective; they enjoy the support of public health officials; and they haven’t been especially controversial. Will these policies change? At least for now, the answer appears to be no: Trump’s new order applies to Covid vaccine mandates, and nothing else. Then again, now that 52 Republican senators have made Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist, the secretary of health and human services, vigilance is probably in order.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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