CDC Vaccines Chief Says Every Single Vaccine Should Be Optional

The Trump-appointed head of the federal panel that recommends vaccines is saying that polio and measles vaccines—and perhaps every vaccine—should be optional.

Dr. Kirk Milhoan, who heads the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said on a podcast Thursday that possibly every shot should be optional, saying that while he had “concerns” that some children might die of measles or become paralyzed from polio, a person’s right to refuse a vaccine supersedes all medical concerns.

“If there is no choice, then informed consent is an illusion,” Milhoan said. “Without consent, it is medical battery.”

Milhoan made the comments in an episode of Why Should I Trust You? released Thursday, claiming that polio and measles are not the threats they used to be because of medical advances and sanitation, not vaccination. His comments are in line with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s anti-vaccination views and his recent decision to reduce the number of recommended vaccines from 17 to 11.

Kennedy’s decision, however, is not being followed by leading medical organizations, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, and every single state plus the District of Columbia still requires most, if not all 17 vaccinations, for an individual to attend public schools. But the measles and polio vaccines have prevented countless deaths and injuries in the United States and worldwide for the past several decades, and changing that could lead to more dangerous and deadly outbreaks.

Medical experts told The New York Times that Milhoan’s decision was completely unfounded and dangerous.

“These vaccines protect children and save lives,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary, chair of the infectious disease committee at the American Academy of Pediatrics. “It’s very frustrating for those of us who spend our careers trying to do what we can to improve the health of children to see harm coming to children because of an ideological agenda not grounded in science.”

A person no longer needs to commit a crime in order to be considered a criminal in Donald Trump’s America.

A masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent warned a woman in Portland, Maine, that her information would be entered into a “nice little database” that would label her a domestic terrorist. Her infraction? Peacefully filming the immigration agency’s street activity.

“It’s not illegal to record,” the woman can be heard saying in a video posted Friday by self-described activist Nathan Bernard.

“Exactly, that’s what we’re doing,” the agent responds.

“Yeah, why are you taking my information down?” she asked.

“Because we have a nice little database, and now you’re considered a domestic terrorist,” he responded, sending her laughing.

“For videotaping you? Are you crazy?” she snarked.

But that is the current reality under the rule of the Department of Homeland Security. A leaked security threats assessment, obtained and published Wednesday by independent journalist Ken Klippenstein, revealed the department’s intention to shift the definition of domestic terrorism toward a much broader one, encompassing a new subset of individuals acting on “class-based or economic grievances.”

As Klippenstein pointed out in his Substack, that could refer to any American.

Meanwhile, ICE and Customs and Border Patrol agents have been granted sweeping authority to operate under DHS with impunity, effectively giving them free license to interact with the American public however they see fit. In Minneapolis alone, agents have been brazen enough to kill a 37-year-old mother by shooting her several times point-blank, arrest a 5-year-old child in his driveway, arrest U.S. citizens at their jobs, and regularly infringe on the public’s First Amendment rights by brutalizing protesters.

Part of the rush to violence could be because of the agency’s lackluster recruitment tactics. Federal officers have historically been recruited from smaller law enforcement departments with years of experience already under their belts, but that tradition has essentially been eradicated in order to satisfy the agency’s “wartime recruitment” hiring spree, which aims to take on as many as 10,000 new officers over the coming year.

ICE plans to spend $100 million on online advertisements in hopes of drawing gun rights advocates and military enthusiasts into its ranks. To do so, they are using software that allows them to “geofence” people within the so-called manosphere, identifying those who have recently attended UFC fights, listened to patriotic podcasts, or shown an interest in guns and tactical gear.

Last week, law enforcement officials told NBC News that ICE’s AI software had “sent many new recruits into field offices without proper training.”

ICE agents in Maine arrested a Black law enforcement officer, even after he repeatedly told them he was a legal immigrant.

Cumberland County Sheriff Kevin Joyce confirmed to reporters Thursday that a viral cell phone video of a man being detained by ICE agents in a Portland neighborhood Wednesday was a corrections officer recruit from the county. In the video, the man can be heard shouting “What’s wrong? I’m just coming from work. What’s wrong, guys? I don’t understand this. I don’t have any violations.”

An eyewitness who recorded video of the arrest, Ben Bozeman, told the Portland Press Herald that while taking a walk nearby Wednesday night, he saw five cars swarm the man and that ICE agents threatened him with a Taser before detaining him. Bozeman that the agents left the recruit’s car still running on the side of the road, with his corrections uniform sitting in plain sight in the back seat.

“It’s very dark, just jarring and threatening,” Bozeman told the newspaper, saying that witnessing ICE’s violence had shaken him.

“They all took off, leaving his car with the windows down, the lights on, unsecured and unoccupied,” Joyce said in a press conference. “They left it right on the side of the street. Folks, that’s bush-league policing.”

The sheriff excoriated the agents for their conduct, saying the arrest had changed his mind about the federal government’s immigration actions.

“We’re being told one story, which is totally different than what’s occurring or what occurred [Wednesday] night,” Joyce said, noting that the recruit had passed the county’s application process to qualify as a corrections employee, and was cleared to work in the United States until April 2029.

“In fact, he was squeaky clean. Squeaky clean,” Joyce said. “I guess if you’re not the card-carrying, you know, U.S. citizen, then you must be illegal, because that’s what they told me is he’s illegal, and he’s definitely not a criminal. So what part of him is illegal? I don’t know.”

Law enforcement officers across the country have been caught up in ICE’s violence, including in Minneapolis, where local police have complained that officers of color have been questioned and detained on multiple occasions. ICE’s leadership has proclaimed that nearly everyone is considered fair game in their mass deportation agenda, as it becomes increasingly clear that the Trump administration is deploying a racist goon squad.

Federal judges in Minnesota are rejecting arrest warrants for some anti-ICE protesters because federal officials haven’t actually backed up claims that demonstrators have broken any law.

Federal immigration agents have repeatedly failed to provide sufficient evidence that demonstrators have committed crimes, such as assault, when trying to obtain warrants for arrest, two people briefed on discussions of sealed court proceedings told MS NOW Friday.

In order to obtain an arrest warrant, a federal officer is only required to show a fair probability that the suspect has engaged in criminal activity—but apparently, they’re not even doing that.

For example, U.S. District Court Judge Douglas Micko struck a charge listed on an arrest warrant for Chauntyll Allen, one of the demonstrators arrested at an anti-ICE protest during services at a Minnesota church Sunday. The warrant originally alleged that Allen had physically obstructed entrance to a place of religious worship, impeding the churchgoers’ religious freedom. CBS News Minnesota’s Jonah Kaplan reported that Micko had struck this charge on the arrest warrant, noting that there was “no probable cause.”

The other charge listed on the warrant alleged that Allen had committed a conspiracy against rights, accusing her and her fellow protesters of intending to injure, threaten, or intimidate someone exercising their right to religion.

Micko also rejected the arrest warrant of journalist Don Lemon.

Customs and Border Protection Commander Greg Bovino claimed that his agents “work very hard with the Department of Justice” to obtain arrest warrants, even working for “several days” to get a warrant for one person. Of course, Bovino is probably best known for “outright lying” about protesters himself.

MAGA operative Corey Lewandowski—who has long been rumored to be having an affair with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem—will be extending his stay as her de facto chief of staff.

Despite being classified as a temporary employee, Lewandowski has been playing a shadow role of sorts at DHS since Trump was reelected, pulling many of the logistical strings behind the scenes while Noem played dress-up in tactical gear and posed for pictures.

Lewandowski’s continued work at DHS was confirmed when an Axios reporter spotted him loudly discussing DHS vendor contracts on the phone at Reagan National Airport in D.C. last week. Lewandowski reportedly mentioned a drone program, as well as Peter Thiel’s Palantir.

There have been countless reports of the alleged affair between Noem and Lewandowski over the last five years.

“Everybody knows they’re together. Can I prove it? No, but they’re together,” an anonymous administration employee told New York magazine last year. Another called it the “worst-kept secret in D.C.” Since 2019, various people have claimed they witnessed interactions like Noem sitting in Lewandowski’s lap and Lewandowski slapping Noem’s butt.

Lewandowski has kept his role at DHS officially unofficial. As a special government employee, he is only supposed to work for the government for 130 days. He does not receive a federal paycheck, has not filed a public form, and is allowed to do work outside of his work at DHS—which apparently includes securing contracts from Palantir, hiring and firing ICE agents, and approving plans. Now he’ll get to do it all over again in the new year. And he’ll get to do it with his so-called girlfriend.

Americans have booed, jeered, and chased Greg Bovino out of their communities—but the Customs and Border Protection boss still hasn’t gotten the message that the country does not like him.

In a bizarre interview with News Nation Thursday night, Bovino claimed that despite the mass unrest spurred by his agency’s violence, public support is still on his side.

“With those inner-city residents in places like Chicago, Los Angeles—what we’re seeing is fantastic public support,” Bovino told the network. “Here in Minneapolis, a lot of thumbs-up and a lot of ‘Good jobs.’”

Bovino went on to suggest that support for ICE and Border Patrol comes from a silent majority, evidenced by compliments he’s received from people “under their breath.” Somehow, in Bovino’s world, that’s because the commenters are afraid of some “5 or 10 percent of agitators” rather than of provocation by the relatively untrained and violent militias that have captured and killed their neighbors and have been expressly permitted to operate under the Department of Homeland Security with impunity.

Meanwhile, thousands of Minnesotans participated in a general strike Friday to express their fury and frustration with ICE’s ongoing presence in their state. The “Day of Truth & Freedom” protest is no small feat. It involves “no work, no school, no shopping,” with hundreds of local businesses closing in solidarity as the state attempts to make a bold statement after ICE agents shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good on January 7.

The Minneapolis City Council also endorsed the community blackout, as did local and state labor unions.

“I think what generated the idea for this action comes out of the need to figure out what we can meaningfully do to stop it,” Kieran Knutson, the president of Communications Workers of America Local 7250 in Minneapolis, told The Guardian. “The government in the state of Minnesota has not offered any path towards stopping these attacks, this violence.”

In a memo issued on January 19, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claimed that the department had arrested 10,000 “criminal illegal aliens who were killing Americans” in Minneapolis—with 3,000 of those arrests occurring over the preceding six weeks.

But it has become glaringly obvious over the course of the last year (or even just this last week) that the Trump administration’s pledge to focus on deporting violent criminals was little more than centrist lip service.

In reality, immigration agents have arrested practically anybody—including U.S. citizens—in order to meet Homeland Security adviser Stephen Miller’s quota of 3,000 or more arrests per day. On Tuesday, ICE agents detained a 5-year-old preschooler, Liam Ramos, in his driveway shortly after he and his father arrived home.

In an attempt to defend their own city from the state-sponsored violence, some Minneapolis residents have opted to openly carry their firearms, brandishing their Second Amendment right to bear arms. Locals have formed neighborhood watches to follow ICE vehicles, banging pots and pans and screaming to alert others when agents enter their residential neighborhoods.

Local politicians—including Minnesota Governor Tim Walz—have advised ICE and Border Protection to exit their cities and state, arguing that the federal agents have done more harm than good. In 2025, before Good’s death, the agency killed 32 people—its deadliest year in more than two decades.

A CBS News poll published earlier this week found that 61 percent of surveyed Americans felt that ICE agents were “too tough” when stopping and detaining people—an increase of 5 percent from November.

Some 52 percent of respondents said that ICE was making communities “less safe,” while a similar percentage of respondents (53 percent) felt that ICE operations should decrease in light of recent events in Minneapolis.

It’s official: ICE abducted a Tufts University student over an op-ed.

Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish Ph.D. candidate, was snatched off the street by six masked federal officers in March last year, even after the State Department had determined that the Trump administration had no evidence linking her to antisemitic activity.

The Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Homeland Security Investigations alleged that by co-authoring an opinion essay in the student newspaper that demanded Tufts “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide” and divest from companies tied to Israel, Öztürk was “creating a hostile environment for Jewish students and indicating support for a terrorist organization.”

A State Department memo, newly unsealed Thursday, states that the Trump administration “has not provided any evidence showing that Ozturk has engaged in any antisemitic activity or made any public statements indicating support for a terrorist organization or antisemitism generally.”

While Öztürk had expressed support for a student resolution put forth by the now-banned group Tufts Students for Justice in Palestine, the Trump administration did not supply evidence that Öztürk was involved in “any of the activities which resulted in TJSP being suspended from Tufts.”

Öztürk’s apparent kidnapping was part of a spate of arrests of foreign-born academics who had merely expressed support for Palestinians. If cruelty is the message of the Trump administration’s sweeping crackdown on immigrants and free speech, then Öztürk’s arrest was part of the opening salvo.

In May, a federal judge ordered that Öztürk be released from federal custody “immediately,” as she had made “substantial claims” that her constitutional rights had been violated. “Her continued detention chills the speech of the millions and millions of people who are not citizens,” U.S. District Judge William Sessions said at the time.

Kash Patel is firing senior agents and directors at the FBI with connections to investigations into Donald Trump.

MS NOW reports that the FBI has removed the special agent in charge in Atlanta, the acting assistant director of New York’s field office, and up to six agents in Miami who were involved in the bureau’s search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in 2022. Other agents who were involved in investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election have also lost their jobs.

Firing employees en masse was previously unheard of at the FBI, which has a reputation for having nonpartisan career staffers. The move comes one week after Patel told a right-wing news outlet that he’d fire anyone who paid confidential sources to help identify rioters involved in the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection.

Patel has already fired other agents over perceived disloyalty to Trump, and, in one instance, for displaying an LGBTQ pride flag. Twelve agents who were fired last year for taking a knee during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests sued Patel in December.

The FBI Agents Association, which represents more than 14,000 active and retired FBI special agents, has said that any firings of FBI agents without evidence of misconduct or other proper cause goes against the bureau’s policies, but Patel has ignored such criticisms.

The firings came one day after The New York Times published a lengthy and unflattering account of Patel’s one-year tenure at the FBI based on interviews with 45 current and former bureau employees. Not only did the article show Patel as incompetent and more concerned about image than effectiveness, but it also confirmed that his chief goal is carrying out retribution on behalf of the president. That seems to be the goal in this latest purge.

In apparent blissful ignorance of the country’s ICE-induced bedlam, several House Democrats voted alongside nearly every Republican member to give more money to the immigration agency.

The Department of Homeland Security’s $64.4 billion bill passed Thursday by a vote of 220–207, with seven Democrats voting in its favor. They were Representatives Henry Cuellar (Texas), Tom Suozzi (New York), Vicente Gonzalez (Texas), Laura Gillen (New York), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Washington), Jared Golden (Maine), and Don Davis (North Carolina).

Ahead of the vote, Suozzi wrote online that while “there is no question that ICE has overstepped its bounds,” he was willing to continue feeding the agency in order to avoid a government shutdown.

“I am voting for the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill, not to expand ICE enforcement or add more agents, but to fund the core operations Americans rely on every day, FEMA disaster response, TSA security, Customs and Border Protection, the Coast Guard, passport processing, and other essential services,” Suozzi posted on X.

Suozzi also argued that the funding bill was the “product of bipartisan negotiations and responsible governing” and would provide funding for those critical agencies and services without expanding ICE’s budget.

Gillen issued a similar statement, claiming that her support was driven by advancing FEMA disaster relief. Other priorities of Gillen’s addressed in the package included efforts to stop child trafficking and the spread of fentanyl, and new support for cybersecurity and law enforcement.

“I’m shocked my colleagues would vote to cut off national and community security funding while leaving ICE to operate under the status quo,” she wrote.

The Democrats in favor of the bill tried to underscore its meager wins on reining in ICE: $20 million to outfit ICE personnel with body cameras, cuts to ICE funding for enforcement and removal operations, and a downsizing of the number of detention beds.

But the bulk of the caucus saw the funding package as a broken take on their current policy positions, chastising their colleagues for supporting the agency at a time when ICE is mass-employing undertrained personnel and giving them broad immunity to harass, intimidate, and harm American communities. A vote in favor, according to some Democrats, could bode poorly come midterms.

“You can’t out-Republican Republicans, because you’re going to lose your base and you’re not going to get any of the Republicans to come over to you,” Representative Pramila Jayapal told NBC News.

Meanwhile, one Republican voted against the measure—Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie—though his opposition did not have to do with what’s happening in Minneapolis, Chicago, or other ICE hot spots.

In a post on X, Massie argued that while he “voted for the SAVE Act and support[s] deporting illegals,” he wouldn’t approve more financial support to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which he derided as the “liberals’ favorite censorship agency.”

“I don’t support online censorship,” Massie wrote.

Instead of high-speed rail or sorely needed infrastructure overhaul, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is using his powers to try to bring IndyCar racing to the streets of downtown Washington, D.C.

Punchbowl News reported Friday that Duffy is pushing for an IndyCar race around the National Mall as a part of the America250 celebrations this upcoming August. The Supreme Court would serve as the start and end of a full lap around the mall.

“The Grand Prix is an unprecedented opportunity to celebrate our nation’s proud racing pedigree, showcase the beauty of the National Mall, and generate millions in critical tourism revenue for the capital,” a Transportation Department spokesperson said. “We’ll keep working with our partners in Congress to outline the positive impacts it will have on the District and correct the record.”

The plan would need congressional approval, since there’s a ban on advertising on Capitol grounds, and Democrats are reportedly already concerned about potential infrastructure and logistics issues an event like this could cause. And they aren’t the only skeptics.

“The IndyCar schedule has been set for months, but Duffy wants this GP in August. How does this fit in? Non-championship exhibition event like Thermal Club was in ’24?” journalist Benjamin S. Weiss commented. “Does anyone actually think a street circuit along the Mall would make for good racing?”