Trump’s Vaccine Changes Put Parental Choice to the Test

**Brian McDonough** (0:00)
Courage, I learned it from my adoptive mom.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:03)
Hold my hand. You hold my hand.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:06)
Learn about adopting a team from foster care at adoptuskids.org.

**SPEAKER_4** (0:10)
You can't imagine the reward. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the US Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. Welcome to The Smerconish Podcast for Independent Minds.

**Michael Smerconish** (0:20)
I did not go back to the well for the third day in a row.
Plane gate, that's what I've decided upon. Plane gate, that's my term of choice, has been the focus of two days worth of poll questions at smerconish.com, each deriving a large vote. Yesterday, 34,445 voted on this question. Is it fair to blame President Trump for the Air Force One decoy operation, a security decision he says was made by the Secret Service? 65.79 percent, let's just call it two-thirds, said yes. Yes, it is fair to blame him. Tuesday, I had asked, was it appropriate, this was right after the story broke, was it appropriate to leave press and staff aboard Air Force One when Trump was removed due to the Iran threat? Similar number, 34,965 voted, and that broke 80-20. 80 percent saying no, it wasn't appropriate to leave the press and the staff behind. In terms of what's new on this story, my lead item in the newsletter today comes from The Washington Post. US intel officials were skeptical of an Iranian assassination threat against President Trump that was relayed by Israel and prompted an extraordinary clandestine maneuver that saw him secretly fly out of Turkey in an alternate military aircraft. Reminiscent, if you remember, of when Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan published their book, Regime Change, and when it was excerpted in advance of the release of the book, they highlighted the fact that in the run up to the February 28th strike against Iran, it was Israeli intelligence. Netanyahu literally came to the Situation Room to make the case as to why there was an imminent threat from Iran.
The US intel sources, the US intel community, doubted, they poo-pooed what Netanyahu was saying. But nevertheless, we went ahead with the strike. There's something else very curious about that Washington Post story. I'll save it for the second hour of the program. I would also point out that Tom Nichols has a piece in The Atlantic today that tethered a lot of the thinking that I've offered here in the last two days. One particular paragraph, I think this is really the crux of the matter. Quote, one immediate question. If the situation was that dangerous, why send up the first 747 at all, with two men fairly senior in the line of presidential succession aboard, meaning Scott Bessent, the Treasury Secretary and Secretary of State Marco Rubio? Perhaps, he writes, the threat wasn't quite so dire or its parameters not so well defined. Update more on that subject in the second hour of the program. Let's talk about today's poll question. Let's talk about the Thursday poll question. I'm being a little sneaky with it. I'm telling you that up front and I've got a special guest in the on deck circle who will help me provide expertise on the matter. I'm asking, it sounds so simple, should parents have the final say on their child's vaccines? Should parents have the final say on their child's vaccines? Doctors say that, this is in the newsletter today, there's a story from the Associated Press, doctors say that President Trump's new executive order on vaccines is misguided and likely to stoke fear and confusion among parents at a time when measles is raging, immunization rates are falling, and children are heading back to school.
This order was signed on Monday, it advocates separating the measles, mumps and rubella, MMR vaccine, into three different single disease shots and giving all childhood immunizations at separate appointments when possible. How practical is that?
In the newsletter today, I said this, watching the debate unfold has made me think of a tragedy that I know that I've referenced on air, but finally needed to go back and see if factually it comports with my recollection. And it does. So the dateline is Northeast Philadelphia. And the year is 2009 A two-year-old by the name of Kent Scheibel got pneumonia.
His parents, Herbert and Catherine, third-generation members of the first-century gospel church, prayed. Their church teaches that it's a sin to trust in medical help and pills. Tragically, Kent died. A jury convicted the parents of involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment. The judge gave them probation, no prison, on conditions. Chief among them, if another child gets sick, call a doctor.
Four years later, four years after the death of Kent, it's now April of 2013, eight-month-old Brandon, another of their sons, developed diarrhea and trouble breathing. Again, they prayed. He died of dehydration and bacterial pneumonia. He was carried to a funeral home instead of to a hospital. This time, they pled no contest to third-degree murder. Judge Benjamin Lerner told them, You've killed two of your children.