Trump’s order on vaccines is a win for MAHA voters and an attack line for Democrats

Trump’s latest executive order zeroes in on childhood vaccines. President Donald Trump pivoted the nation’s attention back to vaccines this week with an executive order that aims to scale back the childhood immunization schedule and space out shots into separate visits.After acting to overhaul the nation’s vaccine policy and guidance, the Trump administration had recently largely stepped back from additional changes to focus on less controversial subjects, raising questions over the political impetus behind and implications of the Republican president’s renewed focus on vaccines.For well over a decade, Trump has expressed his view — against medical groups’ guidance — that childhood vaccines should be administered in smaller doses over a long period of time. The executive order sought to bear out that discredited theory.While the move could endear Trump to some “Make America Healthy Again” voters who want more flexibility on immunizations, it’s also already attracting attacks designed to hurt Trump’s aligned candidates in November’s midterm elections.Jayme Franklin, a 28-year-old conservative activist who appeared with the president to promote his executive order on Monday, said she thinks the action is “going to go a long way” for MAHA mom voters like herself.But Shaughnessy Naughton, president of the left-leaning political action committee 314 Action, which aims to elect doctors to office, said she sees the order as “one more data point” in support of Democrats’ cause.“Our organization and our candidates are certainly going to hammer that message home — that if you want healthcare that’s accessible and affordable, if you want medical advice that is science-based, we need to have accountability in Washington,” she said.