'Threat is very real': Conservative says Trump's school plans would put 'children at risk'

Former President Donald Trump's plan to coerce schools around the country to stop requiring vaccines "puts our children at risk," warned conservative commentator Charlie Sykes in a blistering editorial for MSNBC.

Specifically, Trump has said he'll withhold all federal funding from schools that require vaccination “from kindergarten through college” — a pledge he has now made several times. And he hasn't even limited this to COVID vaccines either, suggesting he could be about to declare war on the entire pediatric vaccine schedule.

"It’s hard to overstate what this could mean," wrote Sykes. "Every state, as well as the District of Columbia, has vaccination requirements for children attending school. It’s routine to require that children be immunized against measles, rubella, chickenpox, tetanus, pertussis, polio, hepatitis B and pneumococcal disease. These mandates highlight one of the biggest triumphs of modern science. The proof is as dramatic as it is incontrovertible. Diseases that once killed hundreds of thousands of Americans have been eliminated or drastically reduced" — with smallpox being entirely eradicated, and polio effectively eradicated in the U.S. Between 1994 and 2021, these policies are thought to have prevented 472 million illnesses and over 1 million deaths.

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All states allow vaccine exemptions for health reasons, and most allow them for religious reasons. A handful allow exemptions for "philosophical" reasons, which make opting out easier. But Trump's policy would go well beyond this and pressure schools to eliminate requirements altogether.

And Trump has made clear in a recent Truth Social video, Sykes noted, by attacking infamous vaccine conspiracy theorist and third-party candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., for not going far enough on restricting vaccine requirements: “So, Republicans, get it out of your mind that you’re going to vote for this guy because he’s conservative. He’s not. And by the way, he said the other night that vaccines are fine. He said it on a show, a television show, that vaccines are fine. He’s all for them. And that’s what he said. And for those of you that want to vote because you think he’s an anti-vaxxer, he’s not really an anti-vaxxer.”

Many schools would forgo federal funding and stick with vaccine requirements, noted Sykes — after all, federal funding only makes up about 8 percent of nationwide K-12 school spending. "But the risk of Trump’s threat is very real, and the toll could be measured in the lives of America's children. In 2024, that needs to be taken both literally and seriously."