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Column: Opposing vaccine mandates, Trump exposes kids to disease
As most of us have learned from experience, tracking the self-contradictions of political campaigns is usually a waste of time. Stump speeches are tailored to individual audiences, campaign promises are made to be broken or forgotten and candidates’ positions evolve over time.
But Donald Trump has been making one promise to his rally audiences that should make the parents of school-age children sit up and take notice. I first noticed it in February. Since then, it has apparently become a standard line in his performance.
Here’s how he put it at a rally over the weekend in St. Cloud, Minn.: “I will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate or a mask mandate.”
If you want to experiment on somebody’s kids, Kamala Harris, AOC, and so forth, have your own kids, lay off of mine….This is about doing what you want to do with your own family, with your own rights.
— JD Vance expresses an anti-vaccination mantra
Trump’s repetition of this line has been largely ignored by a press corps and political pundits focused on his apparent promise to make voting in elections a thing of the past. Yet it takes deadly aim — I use the term “deadly” advisedly — at public health in America, including our nearly 120-year tradition of enforcing vaccine mandates on adults and schoolchildren alike.
It’s also decidedly at odds with the comments by his running mate, J.D. Vance, about the nobility of raising children and the supposed irresponsibility and fecklessness of the childless.
Vance, as has been widely reported, has carried on fatuously for years about how childless people have an insufficiently heartfelt interest in democracy and the republic. He has argued for higher tax rates on the childless, denigrated political and business leaders as “childless cat ladies,” etc., etc.
Yet when Vance was asked about vaccine mandates on Fox News during his Senate campaign in 2021, here’s what he said: “I am sick of these bureaucrats experimenting on my children because that’s what they’re doing…. If you want to experiment on somebody’s kids, Kamala Harris, AOC, and so forth, have your own kids, lay off of mine.”
As part of that same spiel, he put in a pitch for “bodily autonomy,” one of the catchphrases of anti-vaccine fanatics. “This is about doing what you want to do with your own family, with your own rights,” he said.
Whether Trump is even aware of the implications of his anti-vaccine promise is uncertain; he doesn’t project any more awareness of the meaning of his own words than an AI chatbot. He seems to enjoy repeating the line because it elicits cheers from his audiences, who react as if in the grip of a Pavlovian reflex.
But let’s examine those implications.
To begin with, vaccines are among the most important and effective medical achievements in human history. They have proved their value for more than a century.
U.S. cases of smallpox averaged more than 29,000 a year during the 20th century, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; in 2023 there were none. Measles cases averaged 530,217 a year during that time span; in 2023 there were 47. Pertussis, an endemic child-killer known as whooping cough: 200,752 cases a year during the last century; in 2023, there were 5,611. Polio and rubella: virtually wiped out by vaccination.
Vaccines have almost eliminated these lethal 20th-century diseases in the U.S.
(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
What accounts for much of this success has been, yes, vaccine mandates, especially in our schools. Every state in the union requires that children entering their public school systems at any grade be vaccinated against a host of childhood diseases.
In Minnesota, where that rally crowd witlessly cheered Trump’s promise to end mandates, children entering kindergarten are required to have had at least four doses of the diphtheria/tetanus/pertussis (DTaP) vaccine, at least three polio shots, two doses of the measles/mumps/rubella (MMR) vaccine, three doses of the hepatitis B shot and two of the chickenpox vaccine.
To put it another way, advocating for an end to vaccine mandates is tantamount to calling for waves of life-threatening diseases to wash across our school-age population. We have already seen outbreaks of polio and measles attributable to the rise of the anti-vaccine movement. The U.S. is currently undergoing a surge in measles, with 188 cases recorded by the CDC so far this year — the highest number since 2019, when there were 1,274 cases, also attributable to anti-vaxxers.
Until very recently, the legality and constitutionality of vaccine mandates was never questioned by the courts. The tradition began in 1905, when the Supreme Court upheld compulsory smallpox vaccination in Boston, where the disease was raging.
In that case, Justice John Marshall Harlan, writing for a 7-2 majority, set forth the principle that individual rights could be made subservient to the public interest: “Real liberty for all could not exist,” Harlan wrote, “under the operation of a principle which recognizes the right of each individual person to use his own, whether in respect of his person or his property, regardless of the injury that may be done to others.”
The Supreme Court upheld that principle in a 1922 case, this time unanimously.
Over the intervening decades it became clear that school vaccination mandates were a highly effective tool for fighting diseases. Local measles outbreaks during the 1970s were consistently quelled when authorities enforced vaccination requirements.
A natural laboratory experiment occurred in 1970 in the twin cities of Texarkana, Texas, and Texarkana, Ark. As vaccine expert Paul Offit recalled in his recent book about vaccination during the COVID pandemic, “Tell Me When It’s Over,” Arkansas, but not Texas, required vaccines for schoolchildren: Of the 600 measles cases in the metropolitan area, 96% occurred on the Texas side.
Vaccine rates for childhood diseases such as measles have been declining for years in Minnesota, where Trump attacked vaccine mandates.
(Minnesota Dept. of Health)
It’s one thing for a patient to refuse a tetanus shot after they step on a rusty nail, Offit observed; tetanus is not a contagious disease. But refusing vaccination against measles or COVID exposes one’s entire community to infection. As Offit wrote, it’s tantamount to claiming, “It is my constitutional right to catch and transmit a potentially fatal infection.”
Over time, however, state and local authorities have turned complacent. Religious exemptions proliferated, and then exemptions for claimed philosophical or “moral” beliefs. (Only two states, Mississippi and West Virginia, reject any such exemptions, allowing them only on medical grounds in rare instances; as Offit reports, those states have consistently had the highest vaccination rates in the country.)
Meanwhile the anti-vaccine movement expanded. It was spurred in part by a fraudulent study published in Britain in 1998, claiming a connection between the MMR vaccine and autism. Although no such link has been found by scientifically validated studies since then, the claim continues to suppress MMR vaccination rates in Britain and parts of the U.S.
But it also reflects the extent to which vaccines became victims of their own success — measles became so rare in the U.S. that it was actually declared eradicated in the U.S. in 2000. So rejecting the MMR vaccine seemed to be no great danger. But measles is back.
The anti-vaccine camp has seized on the threadbare shibboleths of “medical freedom” and “health freedom” — or “bodily autonomy,” as Vance put it. This tied in with tea party anti-government orthodoxy, especially after the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which for some unaccountable reason became the targets of heightened, partisan hostility.
Agitation against the COVID shots has gained particular purchase on the far right. Witness the presidential campaign of anti-vaccine crackpot Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the dangerous attack on medical science by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his quack henchman, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo.
Right-wing federal judges, chiefly those appointed by Trump, have bought into the anti-vaccine mantras. In 2022, the Supreme Court blocked a Biden administration mandate that large employers require their workers to be vaccinated or be tested for COVID once a week. In June, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco allowed a lawsuit challenging a COVID vaccine mandate for Los Angeles Unified School District workers to go ahead. The ruling was 2 to 1; both judges in the majority are Trump appointees.
The consequences of opposition to vaccine mandates can’t be overestimated. They’re visible in Minnesota, where Trump’s attack on mandates was so lustily cheered in an outburst of what I’ve called “herd stupidity.”
From 2013 through 2023, the percentage of Minnesota kindergartners fully vaccinated against measles fell from more than 93% to less than 88%. The polio immunization rate declined from 93.7% to 88.7%. Rates of DTaP, hepatitis B and chickenpox vaccination have similarly declined. For some of these diseases, the vaccine levels have fallen below those necessary to protect the entire population from possible outbreaks.
So, sure. Call Trump and Vance “weirdos” if that suits your political outlook. But don’t forget that some policies they’re pushing are mortal threats to your health.
Residents of Monterey Park voted overwhelmingly to ban data centers on election day, making the San Gabriel Valley city the first in the nation to do so by public vote.
As of Wednesday, 86% of votes were in favor of Measure NDC, the city ban, according to the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder/county clerk.
Other cities and towns have passed moratoriums on data centers, as a wave of opposition sweeps the country. But the Monterey Park vote can only be overturned by another ballot measure, making it the most permanent data center ban in a jurisdiction.
Monterey Park’s City Council had already banned data centers by ordinance, after a proposed 247,000-square-foot data center met an outpouring of public anger and concern. The developer withdrew that plan.
That facility would have been less than 500 feet away from the nearest home, and would have used three times the electricity of the entire 60,000-person city. Residents said it would have caused noise and air pollution and driven up electricity rates.
“This ensures long-lasting protections for current and future generations,” Amy Wong, co-founder of the group San Gabriel Valley Progressive Action, said of the vote. “It means that future city councils cannot overturn a data center ban, even if data center developers wanted to spend money to fund pro-data center candidates.”
The measure had no formal opposition. The developer of the proposed facility, investment firm HMC StratCap, said it wouldn’t engage in the ballot fight when it withdrew in March.
The Data Center Coalition, an industry trade group, expressed disappointment in the vote.
“It sends a signal that the area is closed for business, both for data centers and for other significant economic development projects,” state policy director Khara Boender said.
“It deprives local residents of the opportunity to compete for jobs and investment, while also causing the area to relinquish substantial long-term economic investment, high-wage jobs, and critical tax revenue to neighboring areas or other states.”
SGV Progressive Action worked with hyperlocal groups including No Data Center Monterey Park to rally support for the measure.
The group is now focused on stopping data center proposals in the City of Industry and fighting a move by City of Industry, Santa Fe Springs, Vernon and City of Commerce to welcome data centers and other industry with fast-tracked permitting and tax incentives.
City of Industry, in the San Gabriel Valley, and Vernon, south of downtown L.A., are primarily industrial areas, each with around 300 permanent residents. They are employment centers, and tens of thousands of workers commute in daily.
There has been little vocal opposition to data centers among the few residents of these cities. Wong said the protest is primarily coming from the surrounding neighborhoods.
“If a data center gets built in City of Industry, residents across the region would bear the brunt of pollution and increased utility costs,” Wong said, noting that it is surrounded by 16 other cities and unincorporated communities.
Data center proposals have been limited in California compared to Virginia, Texas, Georgia, Illinois and Arizona, which sit at the center of a recent boom in hyperscaler facilities to power artificial intelligence.
California has the third-most data centers in the country, with 300, but high electricity rates, expensive land and regulatory hurdles mean that fewer, and smaller, facilities are currently planned than in other hotspots.
That doesn’t mean opposition hasn’t been fierce. In Coachella and Imperial County, residents are showing up in droves to protest local proposals.
In the San Gabriel Valley, Montebello, El Monte and Baldwin Park have all enacted temporary moratoriums, and Alhambra recently banned data centers as part of a zoning code update.
Wong said she hoped the ballot measure vote would galvanize the opposition. “The vote is a testament to the people power of our region,” she said. “Our region is worth protecting, and we won’t let data centers determine our future.”
A rule intended to prevent rent gouging in the wake of the Eaton and Palisades fires has lapsed in Los Angeles County, possibly exposing some renters to hikes.
The executive order that blocked rent increases was issued by Gov. Gavin Newsom amid the devastating wildfires last year. Under the order, landlords couldn’t increase rents by more than 10% above their prefire levels.
The rule, which was supposed to be temporary and was repeatedly extended, ended Friday after a vote to extend it again failed to garner enough votes. Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, whose district includes Pacific Palisades, sounded the alarm in a motion to extend price protections that failed to pass at the Board of Supervisors’ May 19 meeting.
“These price gouging protections continue to be necessary as construction and rebuilding continue, and as thousands of people remain displaced,” the motion said. “Families which signed short-term leases could face drastic price increases of 50% or more without further price gouging protection.”
Los Angeles County is home to more than 1 million rental properties, though not all of them needed protection from the new rule. There are already stricter rent increase caps for many residences, depending on the location, type and age of the building. Despite the rent control in the region, the people of Los Angeles pay among the highest rents in the country.
It is uncertain whether renters will face rapidly rising rents now that the protection has lapsed. But some real estate experts and policymakers said there was no need for the temporary rule that was part of the governor’s state of emergency.
Supervisors Kathryn Barger, Janice Hahn and Holly Mitchell abstained from voting on the motion to extend the protection, while Supervisors Hilda Solis and Horvath supported it.
“I abstained because I did not see sufficient evidence to justify extending this emergency ordinance, nor did I see evidence to eliminate it entirely,” Hahn said.
Barger’s office said she supported allowing the protections to sunset while waiting to see whether new information emerged.
“Market data already shows countywide rents are only about 2% above pre-emergency levels and rental inventory has grown,” Barger representative Helen E. Chavez Garcia said. “The Supervisor is also mindful of the burden these ongoing protections place on small property owners throughout the county.”
Mitchell did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
There haven’t been steep rent hikes in neighborhoods within three miles of the Palisades fire, according to a Times analysis of data from Zillow, the property listing company.
In ZIP Codes within three miles of the Palisades fire, rent increased 4.8% from December 2024 to April 2025. In areas around the Eaton fire, which destroyed swaths of Altadena, rent jumped 5.2% in the same period.
In L.A. County, ZIP Codes farther from the fires saw only about a 2% increase.
A landlords representative, Jesus Rojas of the Apartment Owners Assn. of Greater Los Angeles, told the supervisors during public comment at the meeting that the county’s rent-gouging rules have “long outlived the emergency they were intended to address” and are now being “wrongfully used to harm thousands of rental housing providers throughout the county.”
“There is no proof that multifamily rental housing providers are hugely increasing rents for impacted homeowners,” Rojas said.
Indeed, there are strong signs that the property market in the Los Angeles area has at last begun to cool.
L.A. metro-area rent prices recently fell to a four-year low, with the median rent slipping to $2,167 in December.
Meanwhile, condominium sales had their slowest start of the year in decades. Condo sales in Los Angeles have plummeted to a 20-year low, with fewer than 2,000 units sold in January and February — the worst start to the year since 2005.
Newsom defended the price-gouging protections shortly after they went into effect.
“In the days following the Los Angeles firestorms, we worked quickly to protect Los Angeles survivors from any form of exploitation,” he said in February 2025. “The state has the tools in place to not only block price gouging during this emergency, but also to prosecute bad actors.”
The Los Angeles County Department of Consumer and Business Affairs said it received more than 2,000 complaints after the fires, alleging that retailers and landlords were taking advantage of people put in hardship by their losses, and sent out more than 2,000 cease-and-desist letters to businesses and landlords for alleged price gouging, said Morine Merritt, who oversees department investigations into consumer and real estate fraud.
“Close to 90% of the complaints that we received involved allegations of rent increases,” Merritt said in an interview. Now that the fire-related protections have expired, existing laws and “regular market conditions determine price increases for goods and services, including rents,” she said.
Crackdowns on fire-related rent gouging have been rare, said Chelsea Kirk of the activist organization the Rent Brigade, which analyzed L.A. County’s rental market in the year after the fires. It reported 18,360 potential examples of price gouging in listings but said that few lawsuits had been filed by authorities so far.
Last week, Rent Brigade announced what it said was the first private civil lawsuit brought by a family that claimed to be rent-gouged in the aftermath of the wildfires. Plaintiffs Randall and Candy Renick, whose Altadena home was damaged, said they were charged nearly three times the maximum permitted rate for nearly 10 months. They seek restitution of $96,000 plus civil penalties and attorneys’ fees.
The rental market has probably stabilized since the fires, Kirk said, but other families may still be “locked into illegal rents” that they agreed to pay when they were in a rush to find housing after they were displaced.
Dear Mr. Pelley:
I meant what I said in my letter last week to the 60 Minutes team: joining 60 Minutes is the honor of my career and I am grateful to be working alongside the people who have contributed to the most important television journalism brand this country has ever produced. While I’m new to 60 Minutes, I’ve devoted my career to investigative journalism and storytelling. I started this job excited to collaborate and to benefit from the wisdom and experience of the 60 Minutes veterans, with you among them. For that reason, one of the first things I did in my new role was call you to talk and invite you to dinner. It is a profound disappointment that you rejected that overture and chose ambush instead. Yesterday, you hijacked my first meeting with staff to disparage me, my qualifications, and my intentions with remarkable incivility and contempt. I welcome a diversity of viewpoints and respectful debate among the team, but this was nothing of the sort. Yesterday’s performative display of hostility enacted in front of the staff instead of in a civil, private conversation-demonstrated that you have no interest in contributing to the future success of the show, or approaching my new tenure with a mind open to collaboration and progress. I am here to deliver first-in-class news programming, not to make headlines about newsroom drama. I am eager to work alongside those who share this goal.
Despite yesterday’s misconduct, I had hoped that in sitting down with you today we could find a path forward together. You made clear that you are not interested in such a path.
Your antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear. And I have heard you. I therefore write on behalf of CBS News, Inc. (“CBS”) to inform you that your employment with CBS is terminated for cause effective immediately. Enclosed is your formal termination letter.
Sincerely,
Nick Bilton
Executive Producer, 60 Minutes
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