President Trump on Friday signed two executive orders seeking to strip funding from schools with COVID-19 vaccine mandates and to establish a new council focused on “Energy Dominance.”
Trump has increasingly leaned into the anti-vaccine movement in recent years, including naming one of its most prominent advocates to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was sworn in to lead the agency Thursday.
The effort to bar mandates in schools also comes as the president’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) commission has worked to overhaul federal spending, with its sights set on dismantling the Education Department.
Doug Burgum, who was confirmed to lead Interior Department late last month, was also tapped by Trump to serve as a broad energy coordinator across the federal government. The former North Dakota governor and Chris Wright, an ex-fracking executive, will work together to run the new energy council.
Trump, following his election win, said the council would include “all Departments and Agencies involved in the permitting, production, generation, distribution, regulation, transportation, of ALL forms of American Energy.”
Watch the signing above.
