Listening in on Trump-RFK Jr. vaccine call

Jul 17, 2024

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With Lauren Gardner and Alice Miranda Ollstein

Driving The Day

Adm. Brett Giroir testifies at a Senate hearing

Adm. Brett Giroir, HHS' assistant secretary of health during the Trump administration, says it's unlikely the former president would change childhood vaccine recommendations. | Pool photo by Anna Moneymaker

TRUMP AND VACCINES — Former President Donald Trump likely wouldn’t try to scale back on recommended childhood vaccines in a potential second term despite a leaked video of him Tuesday suggesting otherwise, a former Trump official says, Chelsea and Lauren report.

GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump told Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is also mounting a presidential bid, that the number of jabs infants get as part of the routine childhood vaccination schedule “is, like, 38 different vaccines and it looks like it’s been for a horse.”

“If you ever see the size of it … and then you see the baby starting to change radically. I’ve seen it too many times,” he added. “And then you hear it doesn’t have an impact, right?”

Trump’s comparison of childhood vaccines to those given to horses is inaccurate, and childhood vaccines are considered safe and effective.

Adm. Brett Giroir, who oversaw the National Vaccine Program during Trump’s administration, told Pulse that he never got pushback from Trump on childhood immunization — even as Giroir’s office promoted HPV and Covid-19 shots.

“We did many things that were to promote vaccination and to make sure children got them,” he said. “I got no negative vaccine vibes from the president.”

Giroir suggested that Trump might have been trying to find common ground with RFK Jr. — a longtime vaccine skeptic — as he pursues his support but said Trump’s comments are unlikely to influence his health policy.

“I’ve never heard him say those things,” Giroir said.

Why it matters: This isn’t the first time Trump has expressed vaccine skepticism. During his first presidential campaign, Trump floated the debunked theory that childhood vaccines can lead to autism. Childhood vaccination rates have dipped since the pandemic, and vaccine hesitancy persists in some pockets of the U.S.

But Giroir has real-world experience working for Trump and promoting vaccination. He offers a reality check of sorts, though there’s little certainty around which health policies Trump would pursue if he wins.

In defense of Trump: Roger Severino, who headed the HHS Office for Civil Rights in the Trump administration, said in a statement to Pulse that Trump was “right to ask whether the same CDC that misled the public about Covid vaccine efficacy has fully studied the interactive effects of giving infants the near-20 vaccines on the CDC’s latest schedule.”

CDC critics have blasted how the agency messaged Covid vaccines' effectiveness early in their availability. But the coronavirus’ mutations in 2021 led to millions of infections in vaccinated populations, causing public health officials to revise guidance for people hoping to prevent catching the virus and to instead focus on the vaccines’ protection against severe disease.

WELCOME TO WEDNESDAY PULSE. The heat is unrelenting, and extreme heat can exacerbate the side effects of common medications. Stay cool and stay safe! Send your tips, scoops and feedback to ccirruzzo@politico.com and bleonard@politico.com and follow along @ChelseaCirruzzo and @_BenLeonard_.

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AROUND THE AGENCIES

Visitors pose for photographs outside the Supreme Court.

The aftereffects of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn the Chevron doctrine are beginning to take shape. | Jose Luis Magana/AP

POST-CHEVRON SUITS HEAD TO COURT — The first examples of how the fall of the Chevron doctrine might shape health policy litigation have started cropping up, Lauren and Chelsea report with POLITICO’s Robert King.

The Supreme Court last month ended the 40-year-old precedent that directed courts to defer to agencies’ interpretations of unclear statutes known as the Chevron doctrine.

Attorneys for the state of Tennessee are expected to tell a federal appeals court Thursday that the ruling last month bolsters its case challenging the Biden administration’s decision to rescind family-planning grant money.

The case centers on whether HHS can cut the funding over the state’s refusal to permit abortion counseling and referral upon a patient’s request.

Other early examples include litigation over federal payments to hospitals and nondiscrimination clauses:

— Hospital payments: New Jersey-based hospital system Hackensack Meridian Health sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia calling for changes to the payment calculations to so-called disproportionate share hospitals, which serve a large number of low-income patients. Their goal is to receive a larger and more accurate payment from the federal government.

“By overturning the doctrine of Chevron deference, the Supreme Court has determined that the construction of statutory provisions, even those subject to ambiguity, should lie with the judiciary,” Audrey Murphy, executive vice president and co-chief legal counsel for the system, said in a statement.

— Nondiscrimination: Seven states and a conservative group of pediatricians have sued HHS, asking the court to strike down a regulation expanding nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ+ patients.

HHS finalized a rule in April preventing providers from discriminating against patients based on their gender identity or sexuality under section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act.

The suit says HHS might “cite the rule as a binding interpretation of Section 1557 under Chevron … Or maybe not,” adding that Chevron is overruled.

The CNN-POLITICO Grill has quickly become a key gathering place for policymakers and thought-leaders attending the RNC in Milwaukee.

On Tuesday, POLITICO and Bayer convened two conversations: a discussion with Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.) and Rep. G.T. Thompson (R-Pa.) and an executive conversation with Bayer’s Jessica Christiansen, senior vice president and head of crop science and sustainability communications.

The conversations focused on the news of the day in Milwaukee, including deeper discussion centered on the critical challenges faced by the agriculture sector.

CATCH UP HERE

Abortion

JUDGE GRILLS MONTANA FOR TOSSING ABORTION SIGNATURES — A federal judge took a critical look Tuesday at efforts by the Montana Secretary of State to toss out thousands of signatures on a petition to put an abortion rights measure on the state’s November ballot and ordered both sides in the case to work out a temporary agreement that gives voters more time to update their information to prove they’re an active voter and make sure their signatures are counted, Alice reports.

The order requires the state to fix the software to properly accept inactive voters' signatures and requires Montana counties to reverify rejected signatures.

Attorney Raph Graybill, representing the group Montanans Securing Reproductive Rights, argued that state officials changed the rules in the middle of the electoral process with no notice — by moving to throw out signatures of voters deemed inactive because they didn’t cast ballots in recent elections.

Failing to enjoin the state’s actions, he argued, would mean “potentially thousands of Montanans who are registered voters [would be] unlawfully excluded … people who are entitled to be part of this constitutional process.”

Officials with Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen’s office responded that the case isn’t “ripe” because no injury has yet occurred and asked the court to hold off on intervening until it was clear whether the initiative would be kept off the ballot due to the tossed signatures.

District Court Judge Mike Menahan, who formerly served as a Democratic state legislator, disagreed, saying it was the threat to individual voters rather than the campaign that concerned him.

“They signed, believing that their signature counts. That’s the irreparable harm,” he said. “Voting is a fundamental right, and as a judge, my duty is to uphold that right and preserve it and give life to it.”

Montana is one of many states where GOP officials are working to keep abortion rights initiatives off the ballot. Legal and bureaucratic battles are also playing out in Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Nevada and South Dakota.

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PHARMA WATCH

NEW AD BLITZ — PhRMA, the trade group that represents drug companies, is launching a seven-figure national ad campaign targeting pharmacy benefit managers, the middlemen that manage drug benefits for insurers and large employers.

“This is a sustained effort that we expect to continue through the end of the year as Congress debates lame duck end-of-year legislative packages,” said Alex Schriver, PhRMA’s senior vice president of public affairs.

The trade lobby has been waging a multiyear effort to shift attention from drug prices to the role PBMs play in the complex process Americans navigate to obtain prescription drugs.

Understand 2024’s big impacts with Pro’s extensive Campaign Races Dashboard, exclusive insights, and key coverage of federal- and state-level debates. Focus on policy. Learn more.

Names in the News

Clifton J. Porter has been named president-elect and CEO of the American Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living. He currently serves as the group’s senior vice president of government relations.

Dr. Peter Shin is now chief science officer at the National Association of Community Health Centers. He previously was a tenured associate professor of health policy and management at George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health.

Matthew Dick is now a VP overseeing health media at Porter Novelli. He previously was a health media manager.

WHAT WE'RE READING

POLITICO’s Mona Zhang reports on a joint effort by the FDA and FTC to crack down on sellers of Delta-8 THC products.

Roll Call reports on the GOP attention on transgender health care policies.

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Recently, HCA Healthcare’s Johnston-Willis Hospital in Richmond, Virginia, became the first hospital in the United States to provide treatment in a new clinical trial for patients with brain metastases from lung cancer. The clinical trial investigates the benefit of combining noninvasive focused ultrasound technology with systemic immunotherapy to manage metastatic brain tumors.

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