President Donald Trump made an outlandish claim about early childhood vaccine recommendations, lamenting that “beautiful little babies” were given a “vat … of stuff pumped into their bodies.”
In an interview with journalist Sharyl Attkisson on the Sunday episode of her show “Full Measure,” Trump defended Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., saying, “People love him.”
Trump was then asked whether there should be a commission to scrutinize vaccine safety, as Kennedy has long advocated.
“I believe in vaccines, but I don’t believe that, you know, you have to have a mandate for all of them,” Trump said.
Then, he falsely claimed that children were required to receive more than 80 vaccines and argued for reducing the number of immunizations.
“I look at these beautiful little babies, and they get a vat, like a big glass, of stuff pumped into their bodies,” Trump said. “And I think it’s a very negative thing to do.”
As of early 2026, the CDC recommends, rather than mandates, that children under 10 be inoculated against 11 conditions, down from a previous recommendation of 17.
Trump also claimed that paring back the childhood vaccine schedule would lead to a “better result with the autism.”
Despite extensive scientific evidence debunking a link between childhood vaccines and autism spectrum disorder, Kennedy has continued to push the theory. Last year, he personally directed the CDC to change its website to say that there was “not an evidence-based claim” to discredit the connection between vaccines and an autism diagnosis and that studies showing the contrary had been “ignored by health authorities.”
“The whole thing about ‘vaccines have been tested and there’s been this determination made’ is just a lie,” Kennedy told The New York Times in 2025.
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