Trump and RFK Jr. Repeat False and Misleading Vaccine Claims

During the signing of an executive order on vaccines, President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made a deluge of false and misleading claims about the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule.

The executive order establishes “Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations” and directs federal agencies and states to advance them. The new recommendations attempt to repeat prior administration changes to the routine vaccine schedule through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reducing the number of diseases targeted from 17 to 11. At the time, we explained that HHS had justified this decision with a variety of incorrect or misleading assertions. A judge subsequently blocked these changes after the American Academy of Pediatrics sued HHS.

During the Aug. 10 signing, Trump repeated claims about the childhood vaccine schedule and autism that he has made in the past, often bolstered by comments from Kennedy.

• Trump misleadingly claimed that the changes to the vaccine schedule align the U.S. with peer nations. When counting diseases the schedule protects against, the changes would put the U.S. at the low end of peer nations in the size of its vaccine schedule, exceeding only Denmark.
• The president falsely claimed that the U.S. requires “72 jabs for our beautiful, healthy, lovely, delicate little children.” States require certain vaccinations to attend school, but none come close to mandating 72 doses. And there are no federal vaccine mandates.
• Trump said children don’t need to be vaccinated against hepatitis B until adolescence. That ignores what medical experts say are good reasons to vaccinate every newborn at birth.
• He falsely claimed that children and infants are being injected with massive volumes of fluid during routine immunizations, referring at one point to “vats of vaccine.” Doses of childhood vaccines are generally about a tenth of a teaspoon, and there’s no evidence that the size or number of doses under the current vaccination schedule is harmful.
• Trump baselessly suggested rising rates of autism are connected to the growth of the childhood vaccine schedule over time. A number of studies have found no connection between vaccines and autism, and the contention that there has been a massive rise in autism is also faulty.

It’s unclear what the practical results of the executive order will be. “It should not be valid legally, and CDC should not be changing its immunization schedule table,” Dorit Reiss, a vaccine law expert at the University of California, San Francisco, wrote in a Substack post.

The new order additionally recommends splitting combination vaccines into separate doses administered at separate medical visits. In another article, we wrote about Trump’s false claims about the combination measles, mumps, and rubella, or MMR, vaccine.

Collins Did Not ‘Support’ OBBBA’s Medicaid Cuts, as Democratic Ad Claims

Sen. Susan Collins was one of three Republican senators who voted against passing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in July 2025, and she cited the legislation’s many changes to Medicaid as the main reason. But an ad from a Democratic outside group falsely claims she “voted to support Donald Trump on the largest Medicaid cut in history.”

Democrats have criticized Collins, who is running for reelection in Maine, for her earlier procedural vote on a motion to advance the OBBBA to the Senate floor for consideration. But the ad ignores the fact that she ultimately voted against the bill instead of supporting it.

The nearly 30-second ad is sponsored by a group called Affordable Maine, which, as of Aug. 12, had spent more than $473,000 to air the TV and digital ad, according to AdImpact.

Collins is facing Democrat Troy Jackson, a former state Senate president, in the toss-up race.

Trump’s False MMR Vaccine Claims

In signing an executive order about childhood vaccines, President Donald Trump falsely suggested that the measles, mumps, and rubella, or MMR, vaccine was unsafe and that splitting up the combination shot would reduce the number of children with autism. There’s no evidence for those claims, and the vaccine has been well-studied for several decades.

Together with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., he also repeated many other falsehoods we’ve fact-checked before about vaccines. We wrote about those in another article.

On Aug. 10, Trump signed the executive order aiming to overhaul childhood vaccination in the U.S. Couched in the language of “gold standard” science, but bypassing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s typical process for recommending vaccines, the order attempts to reinstate earlier efforts by the administration to cut the number of universally recommended vaccines. The earlier changes to the vaccine schedule were blocked in court.

In addition to lowering the number of recommended vaccines and asking states to revise their immunization requirements for schools, the order also called for administering the MMR vaccine in separate shots, preferably giving all vaccines “at separate medical visits.”

Rogers Makes False 9/11 Claim About El-Sayed

Republican Mike Rogers has provided no evidence that Democrat Abdul El-Sayed “believes that America deserved 9/11,” as Rogers falsely claimed in a statement this month. Instead, Rogers’ Senate campaign has cited past comments by a liberal political commentator. El-Sayed said in April that the 2001 terrorist attack on the U.S. was not justified.

Rogers released the statement attacking El-Sayed, who is Muslim, after El-Sayed won the Aug. 4 Democratic primary in the race for Michigan’s open Senate seat. El-Sayed, a former Detroit public health official, will now face Rogers, the Republican nominee and a former congressman, in the general election.

Among other claims, the Aug. 5 statement released by Rogers, an Army veteran who chaired the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said, “I spent years hunting terrorists and bringing Osama bin Laden to justice. Never in a million years did I think that I would be running against someone who believes America deserved 9/11.”

The Rogers campaign has not responded to our request for supporting evidence. But the campaign told PolitiFact that the 9/11 claim was based on a video of El-Sayed declining to disavow comments made by Hasan Piker – a popular Twitch streamer who has campaigned with El-Sayed.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee also referenced Piker’s comments in a recent digital ad attacking El-Sayed that says, “When his ally claimed America deserved 9/11, El-Sayed refused to disavow him.”

Explaining the Medicare Drug-Plan Subsidy That Trump Is Ending

Medicare prescription drug coverage is not being eliminated, but the end of a temporary premium-stabilization program could mean higher monthly costs for some seniors with standalone Part D plans next year.

'TELL IT LIKE IT IS' Health Care News | Medicare & Prescription Drug Coverage

'TELL IT LIKE IT IS' Health Care News has received several questions from readers concerned about reports that the Trump administration is making changes to Medicare Part D.

The change could lead to higher prescription-drug premiums for some Medicare recipients, though we won’t know the full impact until we get more detailed information about 2027 premiums this fall. 

To understand what’s going on, it’s helpful to have some background on the different parts of Medicare and how the subsidy came about. 

Broadly, Medicare coverage has three components: Part A covers inpatient hospital care; Part B covers outpatient medical services, and Part D is prescription drug coverage. Beneficiaries can access that coverage in one of two ways. They can enroll in what’s called traditional or original Medicare, which includes Parts A and B, and add a separate, standalone Part D prescription drug plan. Or they can sign up for what are called Medicare Advantage plans — subsidized plans offered by private insurers that bundle hospital, outpatient, and, typically, prescription drug coverage together. 

Germany Moves to Unleash Its Spies as Russian Hybrid Threats Test Europe’s Security Order

Merz Government Backs Historic Expansion of BND Powers, Opening Door to Sabotage, Cyber Operations and More Aggressive Espionage

BERLIN | Germany is preparing for one of the most consequential overhauls of its intelligence apparatus since the end of World War II, as Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government moves to give the country’s spies sweeping new powers to confront Russian hybrid warfare, cyberattacks, sabotage and an increasingly uncertain global security environment.

The German cabinet on Wednesday approved reforms that would significantly expand the operational authority of the Federal Intelligence Service, or BND, and strengthen Germany's broader intelligence capabilities. The legislation must still clear parliament before taking effect, with implementation expected as early as 2027.

The shift represents more than a bureaucratic modernization. It signals a fundamental reassessment of how Germany intends to defend itself in an era in which espionage, cyberwarfare, drones and attacks on critical infrastructure increasingly blur the traditional boundaries between peace and armed conflict.

Under the proposed framework, German intelligence officers could gain authority to conduct offensive cyber operations, penetrate hostile computer systems, disrupt foreign operations and take more active measures against adversaries.

Those capabilities would mark a significant departure for a country whose intelligence services were deliberately constrained in the aftermath of Nazi rule.

Oz’s Medicaid Fraud Claims About California and Minnesota Lack Context

Announcing a pause on more than $1 billion in Medicaid funding to Minnesota and California last month, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz accused state officials of being too lax about fraud, citing, among other things, the results of a provider verification process in Minnesota and the rapid growth of a California home care program. But he left out important context in both cases.

Oz said at the July 21 press conference that Minnesota disenrolled 3,000 healthcare providers “who historically could send bills willy-nilly,” calling into question whether their previous claims were legitimate. Many of those providers, however, have said they were disenrolled in error as the state rushed to meet a federally imposed deadline. Most providers have appealed, and hundreds have been reinstated. The agency that runs Minnesota’s Medicaid program has said the verification process “was not a fraud determination.” 

Trump Overstates Magnitude of Noncitizen Voting in New Jersey

New Jersey’s governor announced that “a software error” in the state’s motor vehicle registration system resulted in 6,600 noncitizens being improperly added to the state’s voter registration list. The state’s preliminary investigation found that up to 400 votes were cast by noncitizens, far fewer than the “thousands of votes” claimed by President Donald Trump.

Trump has seized on the incident as validation of his longtime but unsupported claims about massive numbers of noncitizens voting.

“Well, you saw what happened, they caught thousands of votes in New Jersey where illegal aliens were allowed to vote,” Trump said on July 22, a day after New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat, made the announcement. “Thousands and thousands of votes. They voted in favor of the transgender mutilization of your children and in favor of — in favor of men playing in women’s sports. Isn’t that lovely? They voted against lower energy prices, lower car prices, and bigger paychecks for everyone. They voted against every one of these things.”