For Trump, Who Has 'Strong Feelings' About Autism, the Issue Is Personal

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The president delivered impassioned — if scientifically dubious — remarks about what he described as one of “the most alarming public health developments in history.”

Sheryl Gay Stolberg
Sept 22, 2025

In choosing to unveil a report about autism in the Roosevelt Room of the White House — an august setting just off the Oval Office — President Trump sent Americans a message: For him, the issue is personal. “I always had very strong feelings about autism,” Mr. Trump began on Monday, saying he had been waiting for such an event for 20 years. Later, Mr. Trump proclaimed: “I’ve stopped seven different wars. I’ve saved millions of lives. I’ve done a lot of things. This will be as important as any single thing I’ve done.”

On and off for an hour, with his health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and other top health officials beside him, Mr. Trump delivered impassioned — if scientifically dubious — remarks about the rise in autism, calling it “among the most alarming public health developments in history.” He spouted flawed medical advice about vaccines and delivered pointed instructions to pregnant women not to take the painkiller and fever reducer acetaminophen, the active in ingredient in Tylenol, which he said may cause autism in babies. He recommended parents space out vaccine shots for their babies, contradicting the current immunization schedule. He acknowledged he was going further than Mr. Kennedy and Dr. Marty Makary, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, whose carefully calibrated remarks prompted the president to concede he did not have all the facts.

“We’re making these statements, and I’m making them out front, and I’m making them loud, and I’m making them strongly, not to take Tylenol, not to take it, just don’t take it unless it’s absolutely necessary — and there’s not too many cases where that will be the case,” Mr. Trump said. “And again, what’s the worst? The worst is nothing can happen,” he said, though fevers in pregnancy can be dangerous for both the mother and the fetus.

Mr. Trump’s interest in autism dates at least to December 2007, when he hosted leaders of the advocacy group Autism Speaks at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. He theorized then that babies were getting too many shots at once; a few months later, he said that he and his wife, Melania, had slowed down the vaccine schedule for their son Barron, then about 2. “What we’ve done with Barron, we’ve taken him on a very slow process,” Mr. Trump said at the time. “He gets one shot at a time, then we wait a few months and give him another shot, the old-fashioned way.” The future president was the host of the NBC reality show “The Apprentice” at the time. The network’s former chairman, Bob Wright, and his wife, Suzanne, grandparents of a child with autism, had founded Autism Speaks two years earlier and asked Mr. Trump to hold a fund-raiser — a concert featuring the singer Lionel Richie — to benefit the group in March 2008.

Link to full article: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/22/us/politics/autism-vaccines-trump-personal.html?unlocked_article_code=1.oE8.j1Qu.D3KoPywhle9u&smid=url-share