The RFK-Trump mindmeld on vaccines

This week made it clearer than ever: Longtime vaccine critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is doing things his way as the nation's top health official, and President Trump appears thrilled with how it's going.

Why it matters: If anyone thought Kennedy would be kept on a leash when he became Trump's health secretary, they thought wrong.

• "I think he's gaining capital," said one source who has spoken to the White House about vaccine issues. "This is a mindmeld between Kennedy and Trump."
• But his latest move — cutting the number of recommended children's vaccines — could backfire if he falls short on his promises that anyone who wants the shots will still be able to get them.
• Voters could also get spooked by the warnings about a rise in infectious diseases.

Driving the news: Exactly one month after Trump directed HHS to review the childhood vaccine schedule, officials on Monday slashed the number of recommended vaccines for children by roughly a third, down to 11.

• There was no new supporting evidence or the customary public reviews, but the officials said the move better aligns the U.S. with peer nations. In reality, the U.S. now recommends fewer vaccines than most other developed countries.
• Public health experts and medical groups quickly lined up against the change, saying it will cause a drop in vaccinations and a rise in preventable childhood disease.
• Democrats also jumped to condemn the slimmed-down schedule, in a preview of what could become potent midterm messaging.

The big picture: Vaccines remain overwhelmingly popular in the U.S., and a survey of 35 competitive congressional districts by Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio late last year concluded that "skepticism toward vaccine requirements is politically risky for both parties."

• "Republicans or Democrats adopting positions that remove long standing vaccine recommendations would negatively impact their party's performance," the polling memo adds.

Between the lines: If findings like Fabrizio's make Republicans nervous, they won't find much assurance from the White House.

• Trump has publicly embraced Kennedy's vaccine skepticism, praising the new schedule as "far more reasonable" and calling for even more vaccine changes on social media.

Yes, but: On its face, the vaccine policy change may look self-destructive. But some sources close to the administration argue that it won't impact key voters in any meaningful way that would work against Republicans.

• "The changes are somewhat defensible. They're not insane," said the source who has spoken to the White House about vaccine issues. "They didn't say don't vaccinate their kids at all. Unlike some of the attacks from the left, it's not really true you're not going to be able to get the vaccines."

What they're saying: "President Trump entrusted Secretary Kennedy to evaluate and realign the American childhood vaccine schedule using gold standard science," said White House spokesperson Kush Desai.

• "HHS's historic undertaking doesn't alter access to or insurance coverage of any vaccine for Americans who want them, but instead will increase confidence in vaccine recommendations, including the vaccines that President Trump has himself urged Americans to take," Desai added.

Kennedy has created his own red line when it comes to vaccine access — one that some sources say neutralizes political risk associated with the schedule change.

• Even as his health department slashed the number of vaccines it recommends all children get, Kennedy insisted that anyone who wants the no-longer-recommended vaccines can still get them, and insurance will still cover them.
• "I've always promised I'm not going to take people's vaccines away from them," he said in a video posted on X by an official White House account. "Everybody who wants them can get all of the vaccines that were on the old schedule."

What they're saying: The schedule change was "incredibly shrewd and well executed," said David Mansdoerfer, a senior HHS official during Trump's first term, in part because "they eliminated the access argument by making no modifications on reimbursement."

• "The timing of this happening right before midterms get started gives MAHA another notch in the win column," Mansdoerfer added.

"A middle-class suburban woman is not going to get terribly upset about the theoretical prospect of some child they don't know getting hepatitis B," a person familiar with internal discussions on health care policy at the White House and HHS told me.

• "I think this becomes a nonevent politically."

Between the lines: The insistence that anyone who wants vaccines can still get them recalls another health care promise made more than a decade ago after the passage of the Affordable Care Act.

• That promise — "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it," made by former President Obama — aged like milk in a heat wave.
• No one tried to take people's plans away, but by creating a stronger set of minimum coverage rules, the law triggered changes that made it impossible for people with cheaper plans to keep them.
• Named PolitiFact's 2013 "lie of the year," it led to a midterm clobbering of Democrats by Republicans.

What we're watching: Whether parents who want the previously recommended pediatric vaccines can actually access them as easily for their children.

• If that promise backfires, Republicans could pay a steep price come November.

And Kennedy allies have made clear they want the administration to go further, particularly around weakening or removing vaccine manufacturers' federal liability shield.

• If the administration does eventually go down that path, it risks spooking vaccine makers out of the market — and creating the kind of availability problems it has vowed won't happen.