President Trump’s Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Tuesday on social media that his agency is “discarding the mandatory flu vaccine requirement, effective immediately.”
Hegseth added a jab at what he characterized as the “disastrous” Biden administration for denying soldiers “simple medical autonomy” during the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused more than a million U.S. deaths.
Hegseth said mandatory vaccine policies “weakened our warfighting capabilities.” Vaccinating every soldier with the flu vaccine, Hegseth said, “is not rational.”
The War Department is once again restoring freedom to our Joint Force.
We are discarding the mandatory flu vaccine requirement, effective immediately. pic.twitter.com/9K5W8g0NsD
— Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (@SecWar) April 21, 2026
[NOTE: During the Biden administration, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin mandated COVID-19 vaccines for all service members on Aug. 24, 2021, resulting in the immunization of 2 million U.S. service members. According to Military.com, “for months after the order, DoD officials reported that no fully vaccinated troops had died from COVID-19.” According to Pentagon data updated in December 2022, 96 U.S. service members (active, National Guard, and Reserve) died from COVID-19.]
Critics of the Trump administration and Hegseth’s new policy are responding with sarcastic comments including, “This should work out really well on ships and subs” and “I’m assuming the cooks now have the ‘freedom’ to not wash their hands so good luck everyone.”
Another wrote: “Brilliant, did Iran help you come up with that idea?” with a link to an article on the National Guard website about the “Spanish Flu” outbreak in 1918, which reportedly killed 45,000 U.S. soldiers during World War I.
Brilliant, did Iran help you come up with that idea pic.twitter.com/yACNMlbYa7
— Nicolas Rivers (@FunkyImmunology) April 21, 2026