![Tennessee controversy shows how anti-vax beliefs are bursting into GOP's mainstream](https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/210713085429-dr-michelle-fiscus-tennessee-vpx-super-tease.jpeg)
Tennessee controversy shows how anti-vax beliefs are bursting into GOP's mainstream
CNN
Tennessee Republicans' actions this week to halt efforts to inform teenagers about the coronavirus vaccine have showcased how vaccine distrust and misinformation -- increasingly prevalent in right-wing media set on denying President Joe Biden any political victories -- is bursting into the party's mainstream.
Tennessee's top immunization official, Dr. Michelle Fiscus, said she was fired this week after distributing a memo that said some teenagers could be eligible for the Covid-19 vaccine without their parents' consent. The memo was based on a 37-year-old state Supreme Court ruling known as the "mature minor doctrine," which allows health care providers to treat minors age 14 and above without parental consent if the providers decide those teenagers are mature enough. Following Fiscus' firing, the state's Department of Health went a step further, saying it would halt all advertising about vaccines -- not just for Covid-19 -- that was aimed at adolescents.![](/newspic/picid-6252001-20250215102651.jpg)
In less than a month in office the Trump administration has simultaneously dismantled foreign aid programs that support fragile democracies abroad and put on leave federal workers who protect US elections at home in a move that current and former officials say abandons decades of American commitments to democracy.
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Sen. Mitch McConnell was a generational force for the Republican Party — using procedural tactics and political will to stymie much of former President Barack Obama’s agenda, hand President Donald Trump key first-term political victories and deliver a 6-3 conservative Supreme Court majority. Now he’s the odd man out.
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The Trump administration is forcing out senior leadership at the National Archives and Records Administration in a major shakeup, according to a source familiar. President Donald Trump has been highly critical of the archives since the agency asked the Department of Justice to investigate Trump’s mishandling of classified documents after he left office.
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The morning after the mass resignation of prosecutors sparked a crisis inside the Trump Justice Department, acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove led a meeting with the Justice Department’s public integrity section. His message: they had to choose one career lawyer to file a dismissal of the corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, according to three people briefed on the meeting.
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Seventh prosecutor in Eric Adams case resigns and calls out Trump’s former lawyer in scathing letter
A federal prosecutor assigned to the corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams resigned Friday in a blistering letter that accused top leaders at the Justice Department of looking for a “fool” to dismiss the criminal charges.