Former President Donald Trump has asked his fellow countrymen and women to “remember” his administration’s contributions to rush the rollout of vaccines against the coronavirus, issuing a short statement suggesting that a vaccine wouldn’t be ready for five years or more if it weren’t for him.
This new “statement” from Trump is REAL. 👇🏻 pic.twitter.com/biMJDPNjsu
— S.E. Cupp (@secupp) March 11, 2021
“I hope everyone remembers when they’re getting the COVID-19 (often referred to as the China Virus) Vaccine, that if I wasn’t President, you wouldn’t be getting that beautiful ‘shot’ for 5 years, at best, and probably wouldn’t be getting it at all. I hope everyone remembers!”, Trump wrote in a tweet-style message late Wednesday.
The statement came after an uncharacteristically glowing report by the New York Times on Wednesday giving Trump credit for getting the “key elements… in place” for the Biden administration to be able to expand and bulk up its vaccine production and distribution effort.
The Biden White House has balked at the idea that it should share credit for its coronavirus response with its predecessor, who approved the Operation Warp Speed public-private partnership to facilitate the creation and production of vaccines in May 2020.
Last week, Biden's press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that she didn’t think “anyone deserves credit when half a million people in the country have died of this pandemic,” and added that the Biden administration has faced critical “shortages” of vaccines and vaccinators to “get this pandemic under control” when it first stepped into office.
The Biden administration has contracted Pfizer and Moderna for enough doses for 300 million adults, and ordered 100 million more doses from Johnson & Johnson after the pharma giant’s preparation was approved in February.