What Trump’s vaccine order says about his relationship with MAHA moms

When President Donald Trump signed an executive order on childhood vaccines this week, Jayme Franklin stood nearby, repeatedly touching her pregnant belly.

Franklin, 28, gave brief remarks at the signing and applauded Trump’s order, which seeks to reduce the number of routine vaccines recommended to children.

“This is what this country was built on: freedom for parents to make the decisions that best suit their kid,” she said at the signing. “And I’m not anti-vaccine at all. I’m pro-vaccine, but we want to be able to have the freedom to space it out and to choose which one works for our child. We don’t believe that there’s a one-size-fits-all solution for every child.”

Franklin is a co-founder of The Conservateur, a media brand for conservative women that includes a lifestyle publication and podcast. She’s also a self-described MAHA mom — a subset of the electorate who lean into their identities as mothers to advocate for policies that they purport will make children healthier through the Make America Healthy Again movement. Its ranks include several high-ranking women in the White House, like press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who just announced she is leaving her job to spend more time with her young children.

“BIG DAY FOR MAHA MOMS!” Leavitt posted with news of the signing, where Trump thanked MAHA moms directly.

But legal and medical experts have noted that the order will not immediately change vaccine policy, if at all. There is nothing in Monday’s executive order that is expected to change how parents across the country follow vaccine mandates required for their children to attend school or daycare. All vaccines will continue to be available to families and remain covered by insurance. 

So why do it? 

Trump appears to be trying to appease a base of political support that may have weakened over the course of his second term, said Linda Beail, a political science professor at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego.

“This is more symbolic,” Beail said. “It’s political theater designed to appeal to this group that is really upset.”

There were reports earlier this year that White House officials had asked Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to back down on vaccine policy ahead of the midterms. Polling indicates that most Americans believe childhood vaccines are safe and effective and that the issue may not be salient with a broader swath of voters who are more concerned about the rising cost of living. MAHA moms who backed Kennedy and Trump’s views on fewer vaccine requirements appeared to back away from the president earlier this year after he ordered more production of an herbicide — clashing with their views on healthier living. 

Meredith Conroy, a political science professor at California State University, San Bernardino,  said in an email that while Trump made progress with working class men and young men of color in 2024, polling shows that support has since declined. He may now be trying to shore up other voting blocs, she said.

“The MAHA movement are some of his most loyal and vocal, so I would speculate that this EO is to reengage that movement, and those supporters,” Conroy wrote. “In short, it’s a niche-consolidation play rather than a persuasion play. The risk, of course, is that it can alienate suburban voters and parents who see vaccine access as settled science, so it’s a bet that the enthusiasm gained outweighs the backlash it risks with a broader audience.”

Susan Liebell, a political science professor at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, said Trump isn’t really thinking about how his executive order will impact Republicans on the ballot this midterm election cycle who already have to defend his unpopular war in Iran and a dismissiveness over affordability concerns. So it’s not clear how much any of this is about political strategy and how much is about doing what he wants to do at the moment.

“I don’t think he’s operating under the incentives and traditional rules of party politics in America, and this is just another example of that,” she said.

Trump’s executive order suggests reducing the number of vaccines recommended to U.S. children from 17 to 11 — an effort first announced in January by Kennedy, who used to chair an anti-vaccine organization. But the changes have been on hold amid a lawsuit by major medical groups that argue the administration violated proper procedures. Trump’s latest order won’t supersede the ongoing legal challenge.

The order also calls for the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, a two-shot series, to be broken up into individual shots — even though such a product is not available on the market in the United States and would take years to develop. That would increase the number of shots given to children — even though the Trump administration has repeatedly criticized the number of vaccines already recommended.

Trump is also suggesting changes to vaccine ingredients — another yearslong process. And he is encouraging the newly confirmed attorney general to pursue legal action against the handful of states that don’t offer religious exemptions to school vaccine mandates. If the federal government challenges these states, it could wind its way through a lengthy court system.

The executive order also encourages states to undo school vaccine mandates — a pillar of public health policy that the federal government does not have the power to change outright. Still, an open call from the president could sway Republicans to file more related bills in their state legislatures.

Conroy noted that Trump uses executive orders like “news releases.”

“Many of these releases are toothless, in that there is little that actually goes into effect or changes because of them, but they serve to plant a flag, and make his position on something known and amplified,” she wrote. “And signing EOs give the appearance of swift action.”

The power to enact vaccine policy comes through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a longstanding panel within the agency. But for Trump, the order may be about pushing a deregulation message and selling the idea that he can just get things done — even though his past orders have often quickly become tied up in court. 

“He governs in this way that kind of doesn’t make sense in legal or policy process terms, but it makes sense to his persona, and it makes sense to people who are like, ‘He’s getting things done,’’’ Beail said.

During Monday’s signing, Trump falsely linked vaccines to autism. The president also claimed that his executive order would be harmless. 

“Nothing bad can happen from what we’re doing,” Trump said.

Major medical groups immediately panned the order. Several warned that it would continue to sow doubt about vaccines and risk children’s lives.

“This is especially troubling at a time when the United States is confronting the consequences of declining vaccination rates, including major measles outbreaks, a resurgence of pertussis, and the return of other vaccine-preventable diseases,” the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society said in a statement. Pertussis is more commonly known as whooping cough.

Christine Slaughter, a political science professor at Boston University, said the executive order may re-energize a base of women and men who support smaller government when it comes to regulations, including for vaccines. While MAHA moms are often associated with Republican women, some Democrats and independents have also connected with the base message: healthier living for all and distrust in institutions.

“Growing distrust in science and scientific experts across the board, I do think that very much contributes to this. Going against ‘the elites and the establishment’ that tell you how to raise your family, what bathroom your kids should go to, who is a woman — I think all of those things are connected in ways that we see in how Trump has appealed to different bases and also the priorities that he’s taken on as president, especially through his executive orders,” she said. 

Franklin’s presence at the signing was also a part of the administration’s messaging, said Liebell, who has studied representations of political women. Franklin — a former White House employee who worked as director of correspondence during Trump’s first term in office — is young and attractive by modern traditional beauty standards, Liebell said, and symbolizes how the administration frames pregnancy and motherhood through the lens of White women.

“Politicians have been using women as symbols of things since the beginning of politics, and this issue of what is a woman and who can be in the White House has been thoroughly complicated since the beginning,” Liebell said. “But it’s been more complicated in the last 10 years, because there is this understanding on the part of the Trump administration that women have to not only be able to do their job, but they have to look a particular way to do the job.”

Beail co-wrote a book about former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and examined the politics of the “mama grizzly,” which morphed into a generation of conservative mothers calling on book bans in the name of protecting their children. But the history of motherhood as a political force dates back to colonial times, when women helped impress civic virtues and patriotism in their children. And it’s potent within both major parties, becoming a driving force for Democrats to push for gun safety. The MAHA mom is another extension of that.

“There’s always been women who have said, ‘My political activism is based in my identity as a mother and I want to keep my kids safe, and we do housekeeping and child rearing on a small scale in our homes, but we could do civic housekeeping as well — we could bring all of this practical knowledge and care we have for our children to the community as well,’” she said.