Trump admin orders federal agencies to scrub all worker COVID vaccination records
The order rescinding vaccine record retention requirements was announced in an Aug. 8 memorandum by Scott Kupor, the director of the Office of Personnel Management in a memo to all federal department and agency heads. They have until Sept. 8 'to report their compliance,' Kupor wrote.
'Effective immediately, federal agencies may not use an individual's COVID-19 vaccine status, history of noncompliance with prior COVID-19 vaccine mandates, or requests for exemptions from such mandates in any employment-related decisions, including but not limited to hiring, promotion, discipline, or termination,' Kupor wrote in the official memorandum to all heads and acting heads of federal departments and agencies.
Kupor said the move was part of the Trump administrationʼs broader effort to reverse 'many harmful policies' of former President Joe Biden's administration.
'Things got out of hand during the pandemic, and federal workers were fired, punished, or sidelined for simply making a personal medical decision. That should never have happened,' Kupor said in a post on X. 'Thanks to @POTUS's leadership, we're making sure the excesses of that era do not have lingering effects on federal workers.'
Also, due to document preservation requirements related to recent litigation, Kupor said, 'all information related to an employee's COVID-19 vaccine status, noncompliance with prior vaccine mandates, or exemption requests must be expunged' from all employees' official personnel folders unless, within 90 days, any individual 'affirmatively opts out of this removal.'
The White House did not respond immediately to a USA TODAY request for comment.
Kupor's memo cited a Sept. 9, 2021, executive order from Biden directing federal agencies to require COVID-19 vaccination as a condition of federal employment. While Biden subsequently repealed that order, his Office of Personnel Management soon after issued a new policy reminding agencies that the executive order could no longer be enforced.
A federal judge in December 2021 issued a nationwide injunction against a vaccine mandate for federal contractors, ruling that Biden likely exceeded his authority by imposing the requirement.
In May, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the COVID-19 vaccine is no longer recommended for healthy children and pregnant women. But the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it was still recommending COVID vaccines for healthy children, according to its published immunization schedule.
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USA Today
an hour ago
- USA Today
Forget DC. We've got rabbits with tentacles the National Guard needs to fight.
I'm not an expert on pending apocalypses, but I have a hunch that 'rabbits with tentacles' and 'radioactive wasps' might be nature's way of telling us to buckle the (expletive) up. I have a question for our so-called government: Why has the National Guard been sent to Washington, DC, to combat a make-believe crime wave when America is facing a literal invasion of tentacled rabbits and radioactive wasps? An Aug.13 headline right here in USA TODAY read: 'Rabbits with 'tentacles' spotted in Colorado. Are they OK?' No. No, they are not OK, and neither are we, because last time I checked, BUNNIES DON'T HAVE TENTACLES! Rabbits with tentacles and radioactive wasps. What could go wrong? Two weeks ago, CNN had this headline: 'Radioactive wasp nest found at site where US once made nuclear bombs.' Oh. Radioactive wasps, you say? Found near an old nuclear weapons plant? That sounds like a totally normal thing we should ignore. Look, I'm not an expert on pending apocalypses or a proven spotter of signs of the end-times, but I have a hunch that 'rabbits with tentacles' and 'radioactive wasps' might be nature's way of telling us to buckle the (expletive) up. Ignoring our tentacled rabbit crisis, Trump sends National Guard to DC And how is the current administration addressing our pending wasp-ageddon? By not doing a darn thing. The president is apparently too busy dispatching armed soldiers to the nation's capital because a government employee who calls himself Big Balls claims he was beaten up by children. (Google it.) Opinion: Trump ushers in new DC tourist event: 'A Live Re-creation of Authoritarianism!' Life in America is unfolding like a rejected screenplay for a spinoff of 'The Walking Dead,' and I, for one, am not looking forward to death-by-rabbit-tentacle. When the government tells you not to worry about bunnies, worry The Colorado bunnies in question, according to a New York Times report, have 'black spikes growing on their heads, tentacles protruding from their mouths and sluglike growths blocking their eyes.' Totally normal. Totally cool. Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokeswoman Kara Van Hoose said the bunnies have something called cottontail rabbit papillomavirus, which can't spread to humans. What I found notable about that comment is that Van Hoose failed to say whether the infected bunnies can use their mouth tentacles to grab humans by the face before exsanguinating them. That's certainly what I would do if I were a rabbit with mouth tentacles. Please disregard the radioactive wasps. Everything is fine. In South Carolina, near the facility where the radioactive wasps were found, the so-called experts tried to paint a similarly calm portrait of the looming nuclear-wasp crisis. Opinion alerts: Get columns from your favorite columnists + expert analysis on top issues, delivered straight to your device through the USA TODAY app. Don't have the app? Download it for free from your app store. Edwin Deshong, manager of the U.S. Department of Energy's Savannah River Operations Office, told The Times in a statement that his agency is 'managing the discovery of four wasp nests with very low levels of radioactive contamination,' saying the wasps 'do not pose a health risk' to 'the community, or the environment.' That's generally the last thing a person hears before getting murdered by a radioactive wasp. We need our National Guard focused on bunnies and wasps Look, if there's one thing the Trump administration has taught me, it's not to trust the government. So if you think I'm going to read news stories about nuclear-powered wasp menaces and freak rabbits with tentacles and black spikes growing out of their heads and think everything is hunky dory, think again. Opinion: I'm glad Trump is focused on nonexistent DC crime wave, not his campaign promises I believe the government is trying to distract us from our pending annihilation at the hands (paws? stingers?) of bloodthirsty bunnies and wasps by claiming crime in DC is out of control. Don't buy it, folks. We must demand our National Guard troops be sent where they are actually needed. Not to the National Mall or the streets of DC, where the leading crime lately is assault with a foot-long sandwich, but to the ravaged tentacle-bunny lands of Colorado and the toxic wasp swamps of South Carolina. This is serious. At least as serious as what's happening in Washington, DC. Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on Bluesky at @ and on Facebook at You can read diverse opinions from our USA TODAY columnists and other writers on the Opinion front page, on X, formerly Twitter, @usatodayopinion and in our Opinion newsletter.
The Hill
2 hours ago
- The Hill
Bipartisan solutions for Afghan allies spark hope
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Wall Street Journal
2 hours ago
- Wall Street Journal
‘To Lose a War' Review: Back Again in Kabul
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