You Can't Spell "Hail Mary" without M-A-H-A

The big news yesterday was vaccine-related. With HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. standing at his side, Donald Trump signed an executive order that endeavors to change the schedule for childhood vaccines.

Broadly speaking, if the XO is actually implemented, there will be two major changes. The first is that a number of usually administered vaccines will be taken off the "recommended" list: respiratory syncytial virus monoclonal antibodies, along with vaccines against rotavirus, meningococcal disease, influenza, COVID-19, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, meningococcal B, meningococcal ACWY and dengue. The second, and the one that got the most attention, is that the mumps, measles and rubella (MMR) vaccine will be split into three shots. So, the overall "philosophy" here, which is very much in line with the "Make America Healthy Again" (MAHA) movement, is "fewer shots, administered over a longer timeframe."

Kennedy bragged that the new schedule is supported by evidence, which he called "gold-standard science." He did not specify what that evidence might be, though it is possible that "gold-standard science" means "science conducted when the U.S. was still on the gold standard, back in the 1930s." Trump said that by splitting the MMR vaccine, he was saving lives, because together they can be "quite lethal." He could offer no evidence to support that claim, however.

On the other hand, the American Medical Association has all the evidence you could want. It issued a statement yesterday saying the new schedule would "put children's health at risk." The American Academy of Pediatrics has plenty of evidence, too. Its statement observed that the policies of Trump and Kennedy have led to a 35-year high in the number of measles cases, and said that the XO is "dangerous."

Also unimpressed was Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), who is an M.D. He posted a statement to eX-Twitter that reads:

I'm a doctor. This executive order is wrong. The President does not have the expertise to make these changes.

Vaccines are overwhelmingly safe. Vaccines are effective. Vaccines DO NOT cause autism.

Breaking up vaccines will mean children have to get more shots to get the same protection, not fewer shots. It will increase hesitancy and make children less safe.

Parents should listen to their child's pediatrician about vaccines rather than listening to an inaccurate executive order. This is so wrong.

It is a shame that there is absolutely nothing Cassidy could have done to prevent this outcome.

All of this said, the new vaccine schedule is far from a done deal. First of all, recall that XOs are just instructions to the federal bureaucracy on how to do their jobs. Vaccines, however, are administered by states, as governed by the laws and policies of those states. So, the new XO is largely just a suggestion to states as to how they should change their approach. It's not binding.

Blue states are certainly going to ignore the new guidelines. Red states might ignore them, too. They don't particularly want pandemics on their hands. Nor do they want a bunch of sick infants, which is a definite risk when you go from a commodity that is known (MMR is safe) to a commodity that is unknown (M, then M, then R is not well-tested).

The other problem for Trump here is that HHS tried to change the vaccine schedule earlier this year, and got sued. In March, U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy hit HHS with an injunction that is still in effect. It is not probable that an executive order can be used as an end-run around an injunction. In other words, the administration is going to get sued again (probably today), and is likely going to lose again (probably not too long after today).

The upshot is that, as with so much that comes out of this White House, this looks like a political stunt more than a serious attempt at policymaking. We further assume that the genesis of this stunt is that the economy is dragging, the Iran War is a disaster, Trump's approval ratings are in the toilet, and the administration is looking for any Hail Mary pass it can come up with to try to change the narrative and rally the troops (in this case, the MAHA troops). So, we anticipate a bunch of other stunts like this one in the next month or two. (Z)

Trump Names New White House Counsel

Donald Trump continues to surround himself with his former (?) lawyers. On the day that former Trump lawyer and now Judge Emil Bove swore in former Trump lawyer and now AG Todd Blanche, the President named a new White House Counsel. It's former Trump lawyer Will Scharf. He replaces former Trump lawyer David Warrington, who is leaving for a job in the private sector (undoubtedly one that comes with more pay and less chance of being indicted).

White House Counsel is not a position of quite as much significance as the attorney generalship. However, that person does have the president's ear, presumably, and thus an opportunity to either encourage or discourage his worst impulses. An example of the former is John Ehrlichman, who was a key figure in the Watergate scandal. An example of the latter is Pat Cipollone, who resisted Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and who eventually served as a key witness before the 1/6 Committee.

It is hard to know where, on this spectrum, Scharf will land. It is not good news that he is yet another of the parade of former Trump lawyers. Further, his work for the administration, before being promoted yesterday, basically involved two things. The first was working on executive orders, particularly the outlandish ones, and trying to explain to Trump what each one of them does. The second was serving as chair of the National Capital Planning Commission, which is the group that has tried to muscle through the Arc de Trump, the space for Trump's balls, etc.

So, a lot of signs point in the direction of "Ehrlichman-style enabler." However, The New York Times' Maggie Haberman knows the inner workings of this administration about as well as anyone, having written a book on the subject. And she says that while Scharf is undoubtedly a loyalist, he does have limits to what he will support. In particular, he pushed back hard (and successfully) against Stephen Miller when Miller was arguing for invocation of the Insurrection Act and suspension of habeas corpus.

"Not willing to support the imposition of martial law" is a pretty thin silver lining to this particular cloud. But, in contrast to Trump v1.0, there is nobody who gets hired in this White House who is legitimately independent. So, a lawyer with at least a couple of red lines is probably about the best that can be hoped for. (Z)

Miller Stays In, to Nobody's Surprise

There is some dispute about the real deadline for Rep. Max Miller (R-OH) to decide whether to withdraw from his reelection bid. Some sources say it was Sunday, others say Monday. Either way, it does not matter, because he stayed in. He will be a name on Ohio ballots, and a possible anchor around Republicans' necks, for the remainder of this cycle.

Reportedly, the White House intervened here, and told Republicans to stop pressuring Miller to drop out. This is not necessarily because the administration wants an accused abuser on the ticket, but because it was convinced that Miller would never drop out, and so did not want to give the Democrats ammunition to use against him. The problem here is that both Ohio senators, Bernie Moreno and Jon Husted (both R), called on Miller to leave the race and resign from Congress. One imagines that fact may come up once or twice during the campaign of Democrat Brian Poindexter.

Once it was clear that Miller would remain, RNC chair Joe Gruters was asked if the RNC would support the Miller campaign. Gruters semi-demurred, but said that "[We] will support our nominees." We can understand saying something vague, like "We will evaluate each race on a case-by-case basis." And we can understand taking a pass, and saying, "We have concerns here, so Rep. Miller is on his own." But we don't really understand lending milquetoasty support, which seems the worst of all worlds. Certainly, it sets a contrast with the Democrats, who made very clear to Graham Platner that if he stayed in, he was getting cut off from all resources, financial and otherwise.

There was a somewhat disturbing poll last week, one that hints at why Miller (along with the RNC?) thinks that his candidacy might still be viable. That poll was from Politico, and found that two-thirds of self-identified MAGA Trump voters said that they would still support a Republican accused of sexual assault, while 72% would still support a Republican accused of domestic violence. By contrast, less than 40% of non-MAGA voters said that an accusation of sexual assault and/or violence might be tolerable under the right circumstances.

We're not so sure that the numbers from that poll are actually generalizable to all Republican candidates. There's no way to be sure, but we suspect that what many respondents were really doing was resolving the cognitive dissonance of supporting Trump, who was not only accused, but convicted, of sexual violence when people voted for him in 2024. That might be "OK" for those voters with that particular Republican, but not for all Republicans.

There is one new poll of the Miller-Poindexter race that supports our thesis. It is from co/efficient, and it says that 86% of voters in the district have heard about the allegations against Miller, and that Poindexter now leads Miller by a staggering 14 points, 47% to 33%.

Under normal circumstances, given that OH-07 has a PVI of R+5, we would dismiss a poll like that out of hand. But the previous co/efficient poll of the race, taken a week earlier, reported that just 52% of voters were aware of the assault allegations, and that Poindexter was leading by 5, 48% to 43%. So, greater awareness of the claims made against Miller appears to correlate pretty directly with the state of the race. And note that as more voters become aware of the claims, it's not really boosting Poindexter, it's just hurting Miller. If some of those folks who are deserting the Representative cannot bear to vote Democratic, but vote third-party, or skip that line on the ballot, then that will torpedo Miller.

One other quick data point. Cook Political Report has been watching this race closely. For most of the cycle, they had the seat as "Likely Republican." As of yesterday, however, they have moved it to "toss up." From Miller's perspective, that is known as "moving in the wrong direction." He's lending himself $1 million to try to keep his job; $500,000 now and $500,000 later. The way things are going, he might want to think about investing that second $500,000 in lottery tickets, or Beanie Babies or TMTG stock. By October, all of those things might be a better bet than the Representative's reelection campaign.

There was also some other "drop out (or not)" news yesterday. First up, North Carolina Republicans have chosen a replacement for Rep. Chuck Edwards, who is also enmeshed in a misconduct scandal, and who fell on his sword, unlike Miller. The new candidate is going to be state Rep. Jennifer Balkcom. She was a Libertarian in the early 2000s, then a Democrat for a decade after that, and then became a Republican. She's a little bit MAGA, but is mostly Southern populist.

There was no time for a campaign announcement ad spot, but she did release a brief statement on eX-Twitter, which you can read here. It would seem that she feels her main selling point is that she's an eighth-generation North Carolinian. That means her relatives most certainly fought to preserve slavery, which might or might not be a problem with the voters she's after. The Democrat in the race, Jamie Ager, does not say on his website how many generations of his family have lived in the Tar Heel State. It does say that he was born there, however, and that he's a fourth-generation farmer.

Balkcom's current district, SD-117, overlaps with NC-11, the R+5 district she'll be running in. Still, most people don't even know their own state representative, much less the one next door. And she's only been in office since 2023. So, name recognition will be a little bit of a problem, particularly given the late start date. Still, Balkcom has the magic (R) next to her name, and she's not a known sleazeball, so that will probably carry the day in this purple-red district.

There is another Republican woman, by contrast, who might have some sexual misconduct issues, as of yesterday. That is when news broke that Tyler Boebert, the son of Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), has been charged with sexual exploitation of a child, and with other crimes. He's 21 now, but when he was 18, he allegedly recorded himself having intercourse with a 17-year-old girl, and then posted it online.

We haven't any idea how this will affect Boebert's reelection bid, or whether it will affect it at all. Will voters hold her responsible for the misdeeds of her son? Or will those misdeeds be discounted, because they are not hers, or because they are only accusations right now, or because the gap between 18 years old and 17 years old is pretty different than the one between, say, 23 years old and 14 years old? Boebert's current district, CO-04, is R+9, so she's got a fair bit of margin for error.

And finally, we'll end with a Democratic woman. That would be Alani Bankhead, who is running for the U.S. Senate in Montana. As happened with Miller, her party put enormous pressure on her to drop out. And like Miller, she let the deadline pass with no withdrawal, so she's in until the end. Here, the problem is not that Bankhead did anything untoward. It's that the Democrats' real candidate in the race is Seth Bodnar, who is running as an independent, and the blue team does not want Bankhead to siphon off votes from Bodnar.

In every poll of the race, the combined support for Bankhead and Bodnar has been equal to, or greater than, the support for Republican Kurt Alme. However, neither Bankhead nor Bodnar, by themselves, comes close to Alme in terms of support. Most polls have Alme around 46% and the other two at around 24% each. If Bodnar can open up a clear lead on Bankhead, making clear that a vote for her is a wasted vote, he might have a shot here. But it's a long shot, at best. (Z)

Today in Stupid Stunts, Part I: What Is James Uthmeier up To?

Most readers probably don't know who James Uthmeier is, but he's doing his best to change that. He is the state AG in Florida, appointed to that position by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) after having previously served as the Governor's chief-of-staff.

State AGs, particularly in a big state like Florida, have the opportunity to make a lot of headlines, if that is what they want to do. And Uthmeier definitely does want that; he's already been in the news a whole lot in the last 3 months—for trying to build "Alligator Alcatraz," for battling with the Tate brothers, for investigating JPMorgan Chase due to their releasing records to then-special-counsel Jack Smith, for forcing a women's Irish step dancing competition to deny access to a teenage trans girl, for lashing out against surrogacy as "modern-day" slavery, and for trying to indict Raul Castro, among others. Does that say "show horse" to you? Because it sure does to us.

Yesterday, Uthmeier hit the rare daily double, and managed to make headlines across the land for two different stunts. The first is that he is going after one of the very favorite bugaboos of the right (and of Donald Trump), namely The New York Times. The AG sent that newspaper a 28-page letter raising questions about the process by which editorials are written.

Uthmeier's approach is creative; we'll give him that. He is presumably familiar with a little document called the Constitution, which includes something called the First Amendment. This gives government authorities rather limited authority to regulate newspapers, particularly when it is a state-level government, and particularly when the newspaper is in an entirely different state. The AG's workaround is that he claims to be asking questions as the guardian of Florida's pension fund, which has some stock in the company that owns the Times (The New York Times Company, traded on the New York Stock Exchange as "NYT").

The potential lawsuit that Uthmeier is threatening is not going to go anywhere, since the Times has the very best First Amendment lawyers on retainer, and since any judge in the land is going to recognize this is really an attempt to score cheap political points, and maybe to try to bully the newspaper into going the CBS route. We tend to doubt that Uthmeier is even going to move forward; he got his headline and managed to signal to anyone who is paying attention that he's working hard to own the libs.

The AG's second stunt yesterday involved WNBA player Sophie Cunningham, who is actually the focal point of two different items from us today. A couple of weeks ago, Cunningham was asked about trans athletes, and offered an answer that was either naive or disingenuous. In short, she said she supports everyone, but that she also doesn't want women and girls to have to face men and boys on the field of play. Her framing of the issue was very Fox-like, despite her pretensions of neutrality, and after there was blowback, Cunningham doubled and then tripled down. Eventually, she said that she thinks reporters should stick to sports, which is usually an encoded way of saying, "I want to be able to express my opinions, but I don't want to hear those that I disagree with."

Over the weekend, Cunningham's Indiana Fever played the Chicago Sky. During the first quarter, the Fever stole the ball and commenced a fast break. Cunningham, who is white, was headed for a layup when the Sky's DiJonai Carrington, who is Black, came from behind and knocked her over. You can watch the foul here, if you wish (it's about 20 seconds in). The foul was originally called a Flagrant 1, then was upgraded to a Flagrant 2 on review, which results in an automatic ejection. Carrington got on Threads and posted the message "WHITE PRIVILEGE @indianafever." Note also that Cunningham is a wear-your-religion-on-your-sleeve Christian who wears a cross even while playing.

In short, the incident quickly became the culture wars, battle #278. Although there's no evidence that Carrington was motivated by Cunningham's stance on trans athletes, Carrington IS lesbian, so it was white vs. Black, straight vs. LGBTQ, Christian vs. religion-not-clear, anti-woke vs. woke, etc. You know, all the greatest hits.

And that is where Uthmeier, who clearly knows an opportunity when he sees one, enters the picture. He has no real power over WNBA games played over 1,000 miles from Florida, but he did get on eX-Twitter to advise: "The WNBA knows better than to play games down here in Florida, because I'll be charging people with assault." That's a pretty toothless threat, though. First, because while it is technically possible for an athlete to be charged with a crime for on-field/on-ice/on-court violence, it's very rare, and usually involves the use of a weapon (e.g., Marty McSorley and a hockey stick; Juan Marichal and a baseball bat).

The second reason it's a meaningless warning, and this is somewhat implied by Uthmeier's tweet, is that there is no WNBA team in Florida. The reason for that is that the league tried it out with the Orlando Miracle (1999-2002), and Floridians weren't interested, causing the team to move to Connecticut. The lack of a WNBA team in Florida thus has absolutely nothing to do with the league being afraid of the big, bad AG.

We are clearly in the middle of silly stunt season (see also the MAHA item above, and the second WNBA item below). What we aren't entirely clear about is the motivations of Uthmeier, who is working awfully hard to secure as much earned media as is possible. He is running for election to his current job in his own right, and polls suggest it's a toss up, so he could just be using his powers as part of his current campaign. But usually, when someone works this hard to earn this many headlines, they have larger fish to fry. We wonder if Uthmeier is performing for an audience of one; a Florida resident who often needs new people for high-profile legal roles, and who likes to poach legal "talent" from the Sunshine State (e.g., former Florida AG Pam Bondi). (Z)

Today in Stupid Stunts, Part II: White, Freedom Think They've Backed WNBA into a Corner

Let us pause for a moment to reflect on how appropriate it is that two guys named White and Freedom are doing what they can to advance the MAGA agenda.

The White in question is Royce White, who was a good enough basketball player to make the NBA, but not good enough to stay around. He played a grand total of 3 minutes spread across three games, and is better known to readers of this site for his dismal 2024 U.S. Senate campaign against Sen. Amy Kloubchar (DFL-MN), where he lost by 16 points, 56% to 40%.

The Freedom in question is Enes Kanter Freedom, who is an enemy of the Turkish government, and who added "Freedom" to his birth name when he acquired American citizenship. He had a much more substantial NBA career, but those news sites who are referring to him as an "NBA star" have no idea what they are talking about. He spent his career as a backup center, and averaged 11 points per game while playing approximately zero defense.

At this point, let us do a brief history lesson. If you read the rules for participating in the Olympics, as they were written when the modern Olympic movement started in 1896, you know what you won't find? Any mention whatsoever of trans athletes. Or of performance-enhancing drugs, either. Or of what it takes to be "from" a particular nation. In fact, pretty much the only concern, eligibility-wise, was making sure an athlete was 100% amateur.

That brings us to White Freedom... er, White and Freedom. In response to the Sophie Cunningham kerfuffle, the socially very conservative Freedom got on ex-Twitter and announced that he was declaring for the 2027 WNBA draft. Here's his message:

After careful consideration and reviewing the current eligibility guidelines, I'm officially declaring myself a @WNBA prospect.

If simply declaring who you are is all that's required, then I meet every single requirement necessary to compete in the WNBA.

My team and I have carefully examined the WNBA's eligibility criteria and governing framework surrounding self-identification and inclusion. Based on the current guidelines, I can and am officially declaring my eligibility for the upcoming WNBA draft in April 2027.

I know my presence on the court will stir up strong opinions. I am definitely not here to mock, make fun of, or disrespect any community or personal choices. I'm simply asking that the current rules be applied equally to everyone—the rules that represent the very values many WNBA players and coaches have publicly advocated for. My team and I are prepared to ensure these guidelines are applied equally, consistently, and without exception, and I look forward to the #WNBA honoring its stated principles.

See you at training camp.

White jumped on board shortly after and said he was declaring for the WNBA draft, too.

There were paroxysms of delight on the right, since the duo has ostensibly backed the WNBA into a corner. Basically, the idea is that either the WNBA will have to let White and Freedom play, and thus "prove" that it's not possible to judge whether someone who claims to be a woman is telling the truth, or else the WNBA will deny White and Freedom, and thus "prove" that its pro-trans stance was just empty "woke" rhetoric. See this piece from Fox/Outkick, for example, which suggests that it's checkmate for the WNBA (and, by extension, all trans-inclusive people and entities).

We are stunned, frankly, that nobody on the right seems to be able to game this out. Like... are we missing something? Let us start with the proposition that White and Freedom will never, ever see a WNBA court. This is as certain as can be. The only question remaining is how the WNBA will accomplish that result. And the obvious answer is... the league will hammer out a specific policy when it comes to trans/intersex players, and where the line between "eligible" and "ineligible" is.

That brings us back to the point about the Olympics. The IOC didn't have a drug policy, or a nationality policy, or a gender-identity policy... until they needed one. Then, the organization developed the needed policies. In some cases, it took decades to fine-tune the policies. In other cases, the policies are a perpetual work in progress. The same can be said of entities like the NCAA, FIBA and FIFA.

It is probable the WNBA will figure this out very quickly. The league has pretty poor leadership, but that leadership still had to know this day would soon arrive, so they must have already done some thinking about it. Further, the WNBA has a big advantage over the IOC, NCAA, etc., namely that the WNBA can largely just copy the policies those organizations spent much time and energy working out.

The outcome here—and we can't see any other plausible one—will be to make clear that not just anyone can claim to be a woman and then play against women athletes. In other words, it will be very high-profile proof that the fear-mongering was unwarranted. That said, resolution might not come until after the election, so the anti-trans forces may be able to squeeze some juice out of this before they ultimately come up short. (Z)

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