Trump’s WashingtonHow President Trump is changing government, the country and its politics.Good evening. Tonight, I’m looking at the politics of vaccines under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., which were on display in the Capitol today. We’ll also check in on the state banquet Trump is attending in England. Let’s start with the headlines.
How vaccines are revealing cracks in Trump’s G.O.P.
Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, framed the closely-watched hearing he chaired on Wednesday as the kind of “radical transparency” that President Trump and his health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., promised to bring to government. But what transpired was somewhat radical in a different way. Cassidy, a Republican doctor who does not fit neatly into Trump’s “Make American Great Again” movement, invited Dr. Susan Monarez, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to testify before the committee he chairs. In doing so, he handed Monarez, who the White House fired last month at Kennedy’s behest, the opportunity to speak about the turmoil unfolding at the agency. Appearing alongside a second former public health official, Dr. Debra Houry, who resigned as the C.D.C.’s chief medical officer, Monarez said she had been asked by Kennedy to support changes to the childhood vaccine schedule, without pointing to any science or data that would justify such changes. Monarez also said she had been told by Kennedy not to communicate with members of Congress, nor to “speak or work with” career scientists at the C.D.C. “I had refused to commit to approving vaccine recommendations without evidence, fire career officials without cause, or resign,” Monarez told the Senate health panel, giving her account of why Kennedy ousted her after only 29 days on the job. “I was fired,” she added, “for holding the line on scientific integrity.” Houry described learning about a key change to the department’s Covid-19 vaccine policy on the social media website X and scrambling to correct misinformation shared by Kennedy, such as when he said earlier this year on the cable channel News Nation that the measles vaccine contained “fetal debris.” As remarkable as their allegations were, so was the fact that they were airing them at all. Since Trump returned to the White House, the Republican-controlled Congress has been largely unwilling to exert oversight authority and scrutinize his actions. Even G.O.P. lawmakers who do not always agree with him have, for the most part, marched in lock step with him. Yet Cassidy, as well as two moderate Republican senators, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, appeared to be taken aback by some of the testimony, including their claims that career scientists had been all but excluded from the agency director’s office. And at times, Cassidy pushed back on Trump-aligned senators, like Ashley Moody of Florida and Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, as they sought to poke holes in the witnesses’ testimony. The hearing added to growing signs that the fraught politics of health care has opened a rare but potentially significant fissure in the G.O.P. Kennedy’s role in undermining confidence in vaccines that have long been recommended by the medical establishment, and potentially restricting access to them, is playing no small part in that. Last week, my colleagues Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Maggie Haberman reported that Trump was irritated by the negative coverage of Monarez’s ouster. White House officials, they said, have urged Kennedy to tone down his criticism of Covid vaccines, which Trump pushed to rapidly develop during his first term. It all underscores how the politically expedient alliance between Trump and Kennedy, the nation’s most prominent vaccine skeptic, papered over broader differences between the two men and their followings. Those divisions have come into sharper view as some Republicans begin to worry that the issue of health care could cost them politically in next year’s midterm elections. Some in the party have recently swapped polling that shows broad support among both Democrats and Republicans for routine vaccinations, including those for measles and hepatitis B. It also showed that swing voters cite the importance of less popular vaccines, like those for Covid and the flu. The alliance between Trump and Kennedy was forged quickly last summer. It gave Trump access to the luster of Camelot and to Kennedy’s small but highly-devoted slice of supporters — but there was more to it than that. It also offered Trump a balm to smooth over a rare point of criticism by his own supporters, one that I noticed on the campaign trail last year: their dislike of the Covid vaccine he sped into development during his first term, which contained a synthetic form of a genetic molecule known as mRNA. “You have a president who believes these things worked, was a strong advocate of them,” said Chris Meekins, who worked on pandemic preparedness during the first Trump administration. “The base then turned because of the mandates that occurred, and the fact that the public health community lost credibility over some of the decisions they made during Covid.” This has put Trump, and Republicans more broadly, in a tricky spot. Kennedy has publicly derided Covid vaccines, canceled $500 million in grants and contracts for mRNA vaccines, and effectively made it harder to get updated Covid boosters. That may not pose much of a political risk, given how few Americans still regularly seek out Covid boosters — last season, just 23 percent of adults and 13 percent of children reported getting updated vaccines, according to the C.D.C. But other potential changes in the offing could carry political repercussions of their own. Kennedy has also rescinded endorsements for some flu vaccines and raised doubts about whether infants should routinely receive a vaccine for hepatitis B. (Cassidy closed Wednesday’s hearing by talking about the importance of widespread availability of the hepatitis B vaccine.) In June, Kennedy fired all 17 members of an influential vaccine advisory panel, and has nominated new members, some of whom have been critical of vaccines. That committee is set to meet Thursday, when they are widely expected to recommend restricting the use of hepatitis B shots at birth, or delaying them until later. Beyond Washington, Republican-led states like Florida and Idaho have moved to roll back a broad array of vaccine mandates. “If they go and they make a material change that limits the ability or coverage for parents who want to get their kids vaccinated, that would be a political problem for Republicans in the midterm elections, because parents would revolt,” Meekins said, referring to the administration. Cassidy, who is up for re-election next year, may well pay a political price for challenging the Trump administration on this and other matters. But he isn’t the only Republican pushing back on Kennedy. Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming pressed him sharply during a hearing earlier this month; the Senate majority leader, John Thune of South Dakota, also expressed frustration at the decision to oust Monarez just a month after his chamber had confirmed her. Even Trump made a point of saying recently in the Oval Office that many vaccines “just pure and simple work.” But a few days later, in a reflection of his own vacillating approach toward the issue, he posted a video to his social media website promoting a discredited link between vaccines and autism. Got a tip? PERSONNEL FILE The people making decisions about vaccine policy nowDuring Wednesday’s hearing before the Senate health committee, both Democrats and Republicans aired reservations about the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a key group that recommends which vaccines Americans should take and when. The committee is set to meet on Thursday to decide on guidelines for vaccines for Covid and hepatitis B. Kennedy fired everyone on the panel earlier this summer, and has appointed some new members who have questioned the safety of vaccines, or mandates. He has also added officials who hold similar views to the ranks of those who approve new vaccines, who fund research about vaccines, and who work for the C.D.C. itself. Read more here.
ONE NUMBER
49 percentThat’s the share of New Yorkers who think Zohran Mamdani is the best candidate to tackle affordability in New York City in the latest New York Times/Siena poll. Ruth Igielnik, The Times’s polling editor, explains. It is — as always — the economy, stupid. Zohran Mamdani’s lead in the race to be New York City’s next mayor has been bolstered largely by the view that he is best suited to deal with rising concerns about the city’s skyrocketing cost of living. Nearly half of New Yorkers say that issues associated with cost of living or housing and rent costs are driving their choice of candidate, mirroring the top issue across the country in last year’s presidential election. In 2024, Trump and Republicans were seen as having the strongest economic message, but this time it is a Democrat — and no other candidate in the race dominates a single issue in the way that Mamdani’s brand of economic populism has resonated with voters in New York City. It remains to be seen if other Democrats can mimic Mamdani’s success on economic issues. But as next year’s midterm elections approach, it seems certain they will try. ONE LAST THING Could you handle a state dinner with the king?
Trump, who has long been dazzled by the trappings of the British monarchy, is in England today, getting the royal treatment from King Charles (even as protesters tried to make their presence felt on the streets on London). The pomp and circumstance of the day ended with a state banquet, replete with all sorts of unspoken rules that only the British could devise. Think you’re ready for such an occasion? My colleagues have put together a quiz about the arcane rules of such an event. I am afraid to report that I only scored 5 out of 9. Read past editions of the newsletter here |
