President Trump muddies water on Florida’s vaccine plan, ‘You have vaccines that work’

President Donald Trump said vaccines that work “should be used,” when asked to weigh in on a plan by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to end vaccine mandates in the state Friday.

“You have some vaccines that are so amazing, the polio vaccine I happen to think is amazing,” Trump said. “A lot of people think that COVID is amazing.

“I think you have to be very careful when you say that some people don’t have to be vaccinated. It’s a very, you know, it’s a very tough position,” Trump added.

Earlier this week, DeSantis and Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo announced a plan to end all vaccine mandates in the state.

Ladapo likened the vaccine mandates to slavery.

“Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery,” Ladapo said during his announcement. “Who am I as a government or anyone else to tell you what you should put in your body? Your body is a gift from God. What you put into your body is between your relationship with you and your God.”

[WATCH: Doctors fear ‘ripple effect’ of Gov. DeSantis’ call to end vaccine mandates in Florida]

Florida has several vaccine requirements in certain situations, chief among them mandates for school children.

Ladapo and the Florida Department of Health may be able to lift the mandates for vaccines like chickenpox and hepatitis B, but mandates for polio, diphtheria, measles, mumps, rubella, pertussis (aka whooping cough), and tetanus vaccines would require repealing a decades-old Florida law, which only the state legislature can do.

“Look, you have vaccines that work,” Trump said Friday. “They just pure and simple work. They’re not controversial at all, and I think those vaccines should be used; otherwise, some people are going to catch it, and they endanger other people, and when you don’t have controversy at all, I think people should take it.”

While Trump’s remarks seem to support vaccines, they also sidestep the question of whether the government should mandate vaccinations.

Public health experts have long touted vaccination mandates as key to reducing transmission of disease and deaths.

A CDC article from March 2025 looked at comparisons of morbidity and mortality before and after widespread vaccine recommendations for several vaccine-preventable diseases.

It found that in many of the diseases, like smallpox, measles, and polio, cases fell by 90% or more.

[WATCH: What will Florida’s new MAHA commission do?]

President Trump has given health care policy to the Make America Healthy Again movement by making Robert F. Kennedy Jr. his health and human services secretary.

Kennedy had long promoted the debunked claim that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, or MMR vaccine, caused autism. He also led Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine advocacy group.

Then, in April earlier this year, Kennedy angered the anti-vaccine community by endorsing the MMR vaccine on X.com, amid a major and deadly outbreak of measles across 22 states.

“The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine,” he wrote.

However, Kennedy has also made substantial changes to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which handles vaccine recommendations in the U.S. The changes to who sits on the committee have led to delays in important meetings.

Kennedy has also said that he wants to investigate the childhood vaccination schedule for possible factors tied to poor health, wants the HHS to study potential connections between vaccines and autism, and has been criticized for installing noted vaccine skeptics in positions across the health agency.

The Trump administration has also cut funding for vaccine development projects, including those using mRNA technology.

Kennedy’s decisions led to a contentious hearing in a U.S. Senate hearing this week, featuring pointed questions by both Democrats and Republicans.

Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, who has Trump’s endorsement to run for Florida governor in 2026, on Thursday seemed to support DeSantis and Ladapo in ending vaccine mandates.