First Son Eric Trump’s false claim that political violence is exclusively carried out by the American left prompted Emmy-winning journalist David Shuster to declare that President Donald Trump’s second-oldest son was the “undisputed idiot king” and “a grotesque epitome of stupidity so profound he renders the rest of his family — already a display of moral and cognitive deformities that would confound Sigmund Freud — almost respectable by comparison.”
After MAGA activist Charlie Kirk was killed by a lone gunman on a Utah college campus last week, Eric Trump recently joined a far-right podcast to lay blame for Kirk’s murder at the feet of the left. This is despite the alleged shooter’s staunch Republican family, non-partisan voter registration status and his own friends saying he never discussed politics.
“The bullets are only flying one way,” Eric Trump told podcast host Will Cain. “Listen, there’s fringe on both sides, 100%, but like, I don’t know … These people have tried to do everything they could to take us out of the game.”
In a Tuesday post to his Substack, Shuster — who is a veteran of NBC, CNN and Fox News — called Eric “the dumbest Trump, which is saying something.” He went on to say that Trump’s adult son saying that the left was the only side carrying political violence was “the intellectual equivalent of spraying manure in your own eyes while insisting it is perfume.”
“In this single sentence, Eric demonstrated the mental agility of a cornered sloth,” Shuster wrote. “And the selective memory of a dung beetle rolling it’s own feculent ball across the lawn of public discourse.”
Shuster pointed out that Eric Trump glossed over high-profile recent instances of right-wing violence, like the June murder of former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman (D) and her husband Mark — in which the alleged killer also wounded Democratic state senator Jon Hoffman and his wife, Yvette. Shuster also reminded his readers that a man angry about vaccines fired on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, and killed the police officer who confronted him. The former MSNBC host also didn’t hold back in criticizing Eric Trump from using Kirk’s murder to promote his new book.
“Eric was baffled when critics said the pledge looked opportunistic. Maybe the word itself baffled Eric since ‘opportunistic’ has five syllables,” Shuster wrote. “…He is the family’s apex of ignorance. The pinnacle of self-important incompetence. The organism whose very existence makes the rest of the Trump clan’s failings appear almost tolerable.”
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told senators last week that anyone can get a new coronavirus vaccine. But many Americans are finding the opposite.
Confusion is rippling through the health care system as pharmacies and doctors try to adjust to providing a vaccine that is no longer broadly recommended. Americans’ experiences vary widely, from easily booking appointments to having to cross state lines to access the shots, according to more than 3,200 submissions to The Washington Post’s request for readers to share their experiences.
Chain pharmacy locations in some parts of the country have yet to stock the shots or are turning away patients seeking the updated vaccines manufactured to protect people from the worst effects of new strains of the coronavirus. In some states, they require prescriptions, a step that has largely not been required since vaccines became widely available in early 2021.
Even more confusing: Pharmacies are reaching different conclusions about whether they’re allowed to administer coronavirus vaccines, even in the same state. And some states, including New York and Massachusetts, have scrambled in recent days to rewrite their rules to make it easier to get shots.
Many patients puzzle about whether they qualify to get the shot at all, or if they remain free as in years past.
Officials in the Trump administration have insisted that the new coronavirus vaccines remain available to those who want them and have blasted those who have suggested otherwise. Some Republican leaders are casting doubt on the safety of the shots, while some Democratic governors are rushing to preserve access — underscoring the nation’s deepening political divide over vaccines.
In Washington, D.C., Vernon Stewart, a 59-year-old retired parking enforcement officer, spent Wednesday riding his bike to see a doctor to get a prescription for the vaccine and to find a pharmacy where he could get it, only to be told the shot was not available. At one CVS, Stewart was seated in the chair with his sleeve rolled up when a nurse emerged to tell him his Medicaid insurance plan didn’t cover it.
On Friday morning, he hopped on the Metro train to Temple Hills, in Maryland — a state where CVS is not requiring prescriptions. He didn’t have to show his insurance card and paid nothing for the shot. He left with a bandage on his arm and a free bag of popcorn.
“It shouldn’t have to be this hard,” Stewart said Friday. “It was such a hassle. But I found a way.”
Doctors have the option to provide coronavirus vaccines “off label” to lower risk groups without approval from the Food and Drug Administration. Amid the fierce debates about coronavirus vaccines and low uptake of the latest versions, plenty of Americans want them.
Some, like Stewart, simply want to protect their health, despite not being considered at high risk. Many care for elderly or immunocompromised people and don’t want to get them sick. Some want to be immunized before traveling abroad or to reduce their risk of long covid.
Research has shown that annual coronavirus vaccinations reduce hospitalization and death, especially in people with weaker immune systems because of their age and underlying conditions. Health officials in the Trump administration argue that a universal recommendation is no longer warranted, because clinical trials have not demonstrated the vaccines are effective at reducing infection or transmission in younger and otherwise healthy people who are at low risk of hospitalization. Past research into updated coronavirus vaccines suggests they confer short-term partial protection against infections and can reduce transmission by reducing viral loads and symptoms.
Under Kennedy, the FDA in August narrowed approval of updated coronavirus shots to those 65 and older and people with underlying conditions that elevate their risk of severe disease. Typically, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory committee meets soon after such an announcement — often a few days later — to recommend which Americans should get coronavirus vaccines. The recommendations, which previously applied to everyone ages 6 months and older, compel insurers to pay for the vaccines.
But this year, the CDC panel was thrown into turmoil when Kennedy fired its members and replaced them with his own picks, most of whom have been critical of coronavirus vaccines. The panel is now scheduled to meet Sept. 18-19.
The vast majority of Americans receive coronavirus shots at pharmacies. More than a dozen states limit the vaccines that pharmacists can give without a doctor’s prescription to only those recommended by the CDC advisory panel, according to the American Pharmacists Association, complicating efforts even for those who are seniors or have preexisting conditions as approved by the FDA.
Five Democratic-led states — Colorado, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York and Pennsylvania — have recently issued orders to pharmacies to provide coronavirus vaccines without a prescription.
At CVS, the nation’s largest pharmacy chain, prescriptions are still required for coronavirus vaccines in Louisiana, Maine, New Mexico (where the order has yet to take effect), Utah and West Virginia. Patients in higher-risk groups can receive them through CVS Minute Clinics to bypass prescription requirements in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia and D.C.
The nation’s other two largest pharmacy chains — Walgreens and Walmart — have not provided a list of states where prescriptions are required to get the vaccine.
In a combative appearance before the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday, Kennedy bristled when Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-New Hampshire) accused the Trump administration of taking steps that deny people vaccines.
“Everybody can get the vaccine. You’re just making things up,” Kennedy said. “You’re making things up to scare people, and it’s a lie.”
In Virginia, Elaine Cox said she and her husband asked their doctor for a prescription before leaving Saturday for a vacation in Italy. The office declined because it hadn’t received CDC guidance. Cox, 68, suffers from chronic lung disease, and her nephew died of the viral infection in 2022.
“I was crying this afternoon about this,” she said on Thursday. “My family takes [covid] very seriously.”
Pharmacy employees have given conflicting instructions about how to get coronavirus vaccines, patients report.
In San Antonio, 78-year-old Brant Mittler was told at a CVS Minute Clinic that he needed a prescription on Monday, even though the pharmacy includes Texas among its no-prescription states. The next day, a pharmacist at the same clinic told him it wasn’t needed.
In states where CVS does not require prescriptions, coronavirus vaccine appointments aren’t available for younger, healthier people outside the recommended categories. But the list of qualifying medical conditions, including physical inactivity, being overweight or a history of smoking, is so long that nearly anyone who wants a shot should be able to get one, said Amy Thibault, a CVS spokeswoman.
“If you’re five pounds overweight, you qualify,” she said. “If you’ve smoked a cigarette once, you qualify.”
Some people seeking prescriptions from their doctors face pushback.
In Louisville, Stephen Pedigo said his primary care doctor recommended against receiving the vaccine, arguing that covid is mild and that the vaccine has “a lot of complications,” including heart problems, according to a screenshot of their messages.
The most recent CDC guidance says coronavirus vaccination is “especially important” if you are 65 or older and notes vaccines underwent the most intensive safety analysis in U.S. history.
Pedigo, who is 66 and has undergone a heart valve replacement, insisted, and the office gave him the prescription. He received the shot at a CVS on Friday. “I trust the vaccines are safe,” Pedigo said.
Doctors offices also have reported challenges helping patients get vaccinated.
In Raleigh, North Carolina, pediatrician Mary-Cassie Shaw said her office has preordered from Moderna hundreds of shots, at $200 a dose, but worries that insurers won’t provide reimbursement.
Families for the past month have been asking for coronavirus shots to go along with flu vaccines, she said.
One 12-year-old immunocompromised girl went to CVS but needed a prescription from Shaw — who was asked by the pharmacist to rewrite the prescription to include certain diagnosis codes indicating why the patient needed the vaccine.
“I have to do the legwork to come up with the codes that might qualify them,” Shaw said. “It’s a huge barrier. It’s ridiculous.”
Vaccination rates for the latest coronavirus shots have been low, particularly for people not considered at high risk, according to CDC estimates. For adults, uptake of the 2024-2025 vaccine ranged from 11 percent for younger adults to nearly 44 percent for those 65 and older. Roughly 13 percent of children between 6 months and 17 years received the shot.
The most effective way to increase vaccine uptake is to make it easier for people to get the shots, said Noel Brewer, professor of public health at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health. In states such as North Carolina, the added step of getting prescriptions will prompt many people to not bother, he said.
“They might even just hear about other people having a hassle and decide to go back another time and never get back to it,” said Brewer, who studies patient behavior in regard to vaccines.
Last week, California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington announced plans to form a “health alliance” to coordinate vaccine recommendations based on advice from national medical organizations rather than the federal government, because, they said, federal actions have raised concerns “about the politicization of science,” according to a joint statement.
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey (D) announced Thursday that her state would be the first to require insurance companies to cover vaccines recommended by the state’s Department of Public Health, even if the CDC does not. Washington state government officials on Friday recommended coronavirus vaccines for people ages 6 months and older.
At 59, Brewer doesn’t fall into the category of people for whom the FDA recommended updated coronavirus vaccines. Instead, Brewer said, he will wait until the fall, when he might travel to a blue state.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in the wake of the Minneapolis school shooting that his agency would study whether antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs “might be contributing to violence,” prompting a Minnesota senator to accuse him of “peddling bulls—.”
Kennedy, in a Fox News interview, said HHS is looking at a group of antidepressants called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and “some of the other psychiatric drugs.” The Health secretary has long raised concerns about SSRIs and linked them to school shootings.
A 2019 study found most school shooters don’t appear to have been prescribed psychotropic drugs and “when they were, no direct or causal association was found.”
Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minnesota, said Kennedy is focused on the wrong issue.
“I dare you to go to Annunciation School and tell our grieving community, in effect, guns don’t kill kids, antidepressants do,” Smith wrote on social media. “Just shut up. Stop peddling bulls—. You should be fired.”
Police say Robin Westman, 23, opened fire at Annunciation Catholic School, killing two children and injuring 18 people. Westman wrote in a journal about suffering from depression and having suicidal and homicidal thoughts, according to media reports. It’s unclear if Westman was taking any psychiatric drugs.
“We need to explain why all this violence is happening and we need to look at every possibility,” Kennedy said on Fox.
Democrats, in the wake of yet another shooting, are raising concerns about access to guns.
“There are 400 million guns in this country,” Smith wrote on social media. “More guns than people. In America, we are ten times more likely to be shot in a school or playground than any other developed nation.”
Kennedy said during an Aug. 28 news conference in Texas that “people have had guns in this country forever.”
“Something changed, and it dramatically changed human behavior, and one of the culprits we need to examine is whether the fact that we are the most over-medicated nation in the world,” he added.
Some conservatives have also focused on Westman’s gender identity.
Westman’s name was legally changed to Robin because “minor child identifies as female,” a judge wrote, according to media reports. Kennedy’s Fox News comments were prompted by questions about Westman’s transition process from male to female.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said at a news conference that “anybody who is using this as an opportunity to villainize our trans community or any other community out there has lost their sense of common humanity.”
Kennedy is a longtime vaccine skeptic whose views on several health matters are considered fringe by mainstream experts. His tenure as the nation’s top health official has been tumultuous. He has sought to oust Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez amid a policy disagreement, but she is refusing to step down.
Monarez’s contested ouster, less than one month after the Senate confirmed her to the role, prompted the resignations of three other top CDC officials in protest of Kennedy’s leadership, including his direction on vaccines.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/anger-over-trump-administration-s-latest-firings/vi-AA1Lum22
Every now and then, there’s a study done whose results are so obvious some may wonder “Why did we need someone to take the time to research something we already know?” But the truth is, as intuitive as something may be, we don’t officially know until we look into it. As such, researchers from the School of Medicine at University of California Riverside recently looked into the effect of U.S. immigration policy and practice on the mental health of children. Their work, published in Psychiatric News in July, found children who have been separated from their parents, or who simply live with the possibility of such separation, can experience “profound emotional harm.”
“Immigration policy in the United States is a source of chronic fear, instability, and trauma for millions of immigrants, with the expansion of enforcement mechanisms transforming daily life for families and children,” the report reads. “Psychiatry cannot remain on the periphery.”
Examining previous research on the topic along with clinical experiences of the UC researchers and others, study authors found a rise in pediatric depression, chronic anxiety, and even PTSD among children whose families have experienced separation from Trump administration immigration policies. Notably, this was not just among children who experienced deportation or detention — either themselves or their parents — but those who had even one parent who might be deported or detained. “The mental health of immigrant children is inseparable from the conditions in which they live, grow, and imagine their futures,” the study observes in its conclusion.
Uncertainty, researchers said — including inconsistent enforcement actions, lack of transparency, and the ubiquity of raids, including at locations once held as safe such as schools, health care facilities, and immigration court — has intensified fear within immigrant communities and among children. Even those who enjoy some legal status have been swept up in immigration enforcement action, adding to the sense within communities that anyone can be detained or deported.
This has resulted not only in worsened mental health outcomes, but withdrawal from public life (including school), sleep and appetite disturbances, emotional dysregulation, and developmental regression.
Researchers also note that while daily deportations are down by double digit percentages (nearly 11% overall), prolonged and indefinite detentions are on the rise, which can be just as traumatizing — leading to increased instances of suicidal ideation and alcohol use — for the children left to cope with separation from a parent.
“Both real and threatened separations can undermine attachment, derail developmental processes, and contribute to persistent traumatic stress,” the study says, continuing. “Immigration enforcement becomes a formative, often traumatic, force in children’s lives.”
