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| Donald Trump Signs Vaccine Executive Order |
A soda bottle? Did Donald Trump really say that babies receive vaccine injections the size of a soda bottle? Yes, he did.
On August 10, 2026, United States President Donald Trump, accompanied by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the Secretary of Health and Human Services, a noted conspiracy theorist, and various other more or less random people, announced a new vaccine policy by executive order. This is the Trump administration's latest salvo in its attempts to change vaccine recommendations, the courts and states have already resisted Trump's earlier anti-vaccine orders.
Sitting at a desk, while the other speakers stood, droning hesitantly in a barely audible voice, Trump rambled about the alleged harm of vaccines. After complaining that American children get too many vaccines, even hesitantly saying that combined vaccines could be “quite lethal,” Trump offered a statement that should have, but apparently did not, destroy his credibility forever. Perking up and waving his arms, Trump said:
“You should have five separate visits for vaccines rather than getting them all in the same day and I saw this early on and I’ve seen proof of it, where they have a vaccination, it looks like the size of a bottle of soda poured into a little child’s body.”The size of a soda bottle? Any parent who has watched their child’s vaccination knows that vaccines are administered from tiny little syringes. The MMR vaccine in the United States is available only in single dose, 0.5 ml disposable syringes. Coronavirus and influenza vaccines are often marketed in multi-use vials of 20 ml., which amounts to less than 1 fluid ounce per vial. Of course, nobody administers the entire multi-use vial to one baby!
So, Trump just made this up. The most frightening part is that he was reading from a prepared manuscript, which suggests that one or more speechwriters prepared and vetted this incoherent material before he presented it. The fact that Trump didn’t even flinch when he read this laughable passage (indeed, he perked up and spread his arms, illustrating the soda bottle’s immense size) makes me wonder whether he needs another cognitive processing test.
Sometimes, when we evaluate a speech, we should heed the one key sentence that tells us everything we need to know. Why should we care about the big picture when the detail in the corner carries the central message? Furthermore, why would the public ignore that entire message? It all comes down to how people evaluate or fail to evaluate a speaker's credibility.
Now, for the most part, the press sanewashed this entire episode. For example, CNBC took time to notice that Trump spoke “without evidence.” CNBC also cited experts who denied that the vaccine was lethal. Their calm journalistic approach gave the idea that there is a debate on some level, even as they acknowledged that Trump’s view raised controversy. Did they say anything about the soda bottle? No! Why not? We will get to that in a moment.
As far as I can see, only PolitiFact bothered to comment on Trump’s soda bottle claim, awarding it their sadly popular “Pants on Fire” rating.
Now, what was truly wrong with Trump’s claim? Is the press right, is the main problem the fact that many experts disagree? I think not. We learned years ago, did we not, that the people that support Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. hold experts in contempt. Why would they suddenly care?
These responses underestimated Trump's attack on reality. A man who thinks that children received injections the size of soda bottles is unworthy of belief on any medical subject. The real point is not that Trump and the experts clashed once again. His supporters consider that to be a plus. No, the real point is that he said something so bafflingly idiotic, so disconnected from reality, so bizarre, that even the silliest conspiracy theorist would struggle to defend it. The point is that someone who says, and apparently believes, something so foolish should have no credibility whatsoever. To wallow in point-by-point refutation of the other conspiracy theories that Trump’s speech covered merely wastes our time.
Why did the press ignore the soda bottle issue? For the question on my mind is not whether Trump does or does not agree with experts. We have known for years that he rarely does. Nor is it the point that he drifted off to sleep during his own panel session. He has done that before; no one cares. Nor is it the point that Kennedy, a recovering drug addict, trembled like an autumn leaf during his share of the event. No one cares about that. No, the point is that Trump said something that was bafflingly daffy, said it with total seriousness, and blithely moved on to the rest of his anti-vaccine argument. A soda bottle? Really? Have we become so accustomed to Donald Trump’s incoherence, ignorance, and foolishness, that there still remains a need to – sanewash – his presidency, as part of some massive, nationwide effort to pretend that the United States still has a functioning president?
A psychological concept called the incredulity effect helps us to understand that. This effect occurs when sources, such as respected speakers, say something that is so astonishing that the audience literally does not believe they said it. In other words, even if they are faced with a direct quotation, news report, or video clip, we cannot expect Trump’s supporters, who endow him with credibility far beyond what he deserves, to admit that he said something that was so completely absurd. Worse, if they admit that he did say it, they could tell themselves he was just joking, speaking hyperbolically, playing five-dimensional chess, or “owning the libs.” Alternatively, as in this case, pretty much everybody just ignores Trump’s departure from reality. Maybe the nation is collectively unwilling to admit that our nation voluntarily gave the nation’s governance, the leadership of the free world, and authority over the nuclear codes, to a person whose brain no longer functions as it should.
Sadly, not one of those excuses makes sense. First, Trump did say it and there is a video. Second, he was reading from a prepared manuscript that someone, one hopes, must have vetted. Third, Trump neither flinched nor smirked when he spoke. No, he was serious. Unfortunately, it seems that neither the press nor Trump’s millions of loyal acolytes will accept the obvious.
Nevertheless, their obliviousness changes nothing. The only part of Trump’s entire presentation, indeed, the only part of the entire lengthy panel discussion, that we should care about was that one searing burst of irrationality: a dose of vaccines “the size of a bottle of soda.” That was the one part of the speech that actually woke Trump up, leading him to gesticulate emphatically. That one sadly underreported phrase should have been enough to convince the entire nation that no one should take Donald Trump seriously. Trump’s incisive destruction of his own credibility should render the rest of his presentation moot.
Anyone who follows the news knows that Trump is not the only American leader who has passed his prime. Luckily, however, those people do not control a fearsome military machine. Never an intellectual marvel, Trump has deteriorated past the point at which he can address even the most basic national problems. The Republican majority in Congress supinely ratifies every foolish decision that Trump makes. All too often, even the Supreme Court bows at his irrational commands. But is that what is best for the country?
Will the public notice, or not? After all, in the long run, credibility is an audience response, and Trump's audience, which is the entire nation, seems to be floundering in his wake. In the moment that he rattled on about the soda bottle, Trump presented irrefutable evidence that he deserve no credibility from anyone, at any time, even as his increasingly daft presidency waddles along.
by William D. Harpine
Linguistic Note: The charming neologism “sanewashing” often crops up among anti-Trump bloggers; I think that Jennifer Rubin coined the term, but who knows?
