Ross Douthat

They were wrong, but they didn't know it.

That's the crucial difference.

Do you think, though, that there is a danger that for every person who may feel more trust in this and may be more likely to get at least some vaccines for their kids,

There's someone else who just feels profoundly validated in their vaccine skepticism and says, look, even the government of the United States is open to my ideas about vaccines, and those ideas are false and are leading to collapsing vaccine rates.

Isn't there a middle ground, again, and this is similar to what I was suggesting with the COVID vaccine, where you say, we have been too high-handed, too sweeping, we have gotten things wrong, but nonetheless...

you know, it is our job to tell you straightforwardly what we think and not just sort of present a kind of ongoing debate, right?

Isn't there a way to be humble, but also try and tell the truth, right?

As the best you can.

But there is also, as I look at the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and hopefully someday I can interview him, you know, you don't have to speak for him.

But he has obviously a long history of casting doubt on lots of different vaccines.

And, you know, the sort of enthusiastic case that you just made for different vaccines, it just doesn't seem like one he's comfortable making.

He's comfortable saying something positive about some vaccines, but he's not a –

He's not a salesman for vaccines, right?

Would you hope that vaccine uptake rates would go up in the end?

Yes.

At the end of the Trump era?

Especially for the most important vaccines, yes.

Okay.

All right.

Well, that's a good metric, and I'll be back here in three years to talk about it.