A day after senators of both parties rebuked his health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for restricting access to Covid vaccines at a congressional hearing, President Donald Trump praised them, along with some other shots, during an Oval Office event.
“A lot of people think that Covid is amazing,” Trump said, referencing the vaccine, not the disease. “You know, there are many people that believe strongly in that.” Trump also said he thought the polio shot was amazing and that “you have to be very careful when you say that some people don’t have to be vaccinated.”
Trump was responding to a question from a reporter about Florida officials’ announcement this week that they would be lifting all vaccination requirements in the state, including for schoolchildren.
Trump said: “You have vaccines that work. They just pure and simple work. They’re not controversial at all. And I think those vaccines should be used. Otherwise some people are going to catch it and they endanger other people.”
Kennedy has long maintained that parents should have the right to refuse vaccinations required by schools, and he has only approved new Covid vaccines for people older than 65 and those with underlying health conditions. Others may no longer get the shots at pharmacies without a prescription depending on the state where they live.
Senators at a Finance Committee hearing Thursday, including Republican Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and the chamber’s second-ranking Republican, John Barrasso of Wyoming, both doctors, questioned Kennedy sharply about the changes to vaccine policy. Barrasso cited polling that he said showed the vast majority of Americans supported most vaccines, while Cassidy praised Trump’s Operation Warp Speed, which helped bring the Covid shots to market in record time.
Kennedy struggled to explain how he could both be so critical of Covid shots — he once said they were the “deadliest vaccine ever made” – and at the same time agree with Cassidy that Trump deserved credit for helping to develop them.
Trump’s endorsement of vaccination also comes two weeks before a government vaccine panel, which Kennedy has stacked with members who share his skepticism of the shots, will meet to consider revisions to the childhood vaccine schedule.
Among other issues, the panel is considering whether to change guidance that newborns receive Hepatitis B vaccines. Kennedy has argued against that practice. Though the disease is usually transmitted through sex or infected needles, mothers can pass it to their babies.
Kennedy ran a group, Children’s Health Defense, that questions vaccine safety and was involved with litigation against vaccine makers before he dropped out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsed Trump. He’s long believed that an increase in childhood immunizations is connected to rising autism cases, despite abundant evidence to the contrary. Trump named him health secretary shortly after he won the election.
Still, in the immediate aftermath of the Senate hearing Thursday, Trump backed Kennedy, saying his health secretary means well and that he appreciated that Kennedy had a different take on health issues than others.
Trump also didn’t sound alarmed when Kennedy pulled $500 million in funding for research on the mRNA technology that undergirded the Covid shots last month, saying at the time that Operation Warp Speed was “a long time ago and we’re on to other things.”
On Monday, Trump asked drug companies to justify the success of their Covid vaccines with more efficacy data. Moderna, Novavax and Pfizer responded quickly with evidence they said demonstrated the shots saved lives.
Trump also supported Kennedy last week by firing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez. Kennedy had picked Monarez for the job and she’d been in it only a month. Monarez said Kennedy pushed her out because she refused to agree in advance to support changes to vaccine guidance recommended by Kennedy’s handpicked vaccine advisory panel. The CDC director ultimately decides what shots to recommend and to whom.
Kennedy denied that was why he dismissed her at the Thursday hearing and said Monarez had told him she wasn’t trustworthy. Monarez’s lawyers said that was not true.
