Trump’s Anti-Vax Agenda Will Kill Americans

Of all the dangers that Donald Trump both threatens and embodies, from seedy criminality to sprawling authoritarianism, perhaps no threat is more acute than the one he poses to public health. “I will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate,” Trump said at a rally in Minnesota last weekend. The former president used the same language — not “one penny” for schools that require vaccines or masks — at a rally in May.

Trump’s contempt for public health has already contributed to thousands of deaths; it’s the most durable legacy of his presidency. In a taped conversation with reporter Bob Woodward on Feb. 7, 2020, Trump described Covid as “deadly stuff” that was “more deadly than even your strenuous flus.” Within weeks, Trump told the public the opposite — that Covid was “like the regular flu.” Two days after that, before a crowd in South Carolina, Trump began calling Covid a Democratic “hoax.” His idiotic jabber about miracle disinfectants and healing light soon followed.