The Father of the COVID Vaccine: Trump's Statements Endorsing and Taking Credit for COVID Vaccines
Study describes how Trump was an ideal "counter stereotypical messenger" because he was a Republican and Republicans were more likely to be "vaccine skeptics."
While following the COVID pandemic and mass vaccination campaign, I have noticed that some people are, oddly, defending Donald Trump from accusations of his role in the COVID-19 vaccine mass vaccination campaign. While Operation Warp Speed served as the groundwork for the rapid development and deployment of mRNA and DNA COVID-19 vaccines, much of the public criticism of the vaccines is directed at Fauci, public health, regulators, and pharmaceutical companies. Perhaps this focus has caused Trump’s role in the potential criminal racketeering syndicate to be less visible than other public figures.
Over the last few months, some Trump loyalists are defending Trump from criticism for his role in the COVID-19 response. Whether these individuals and accounts are organic or something else (such as inauthentic actors attempting to boost Trump’s public standing prior to a 2024 POTUS run), I thought it might be useful to create an inventory of comments Trump has made promoting or taking credit COVID-19 vaccines.
Here is an example of self-described Trump loyalists denying that Trump made statements that Trump actually made:
Despite the Trump loyalists claiming Bryson Gray is lying, Trump made two of the statements referenced by Gray during an interview with Candace Owens.
And those are the “tip of the iceberg” of statements Trump made about the vaccine. I will cover the 3 statements in Gray’s tweet and proceed to include additional statements not referenced in the above Twitter exchange.
Trump told Candace Owen during an interview that "The vaccine is one of the greatest achievements of mankind and he took credit for all three COVID-19 vaccines, stating "I came up with a vaccine, with three vaccines all are very, very good," he said in the interview, referring to the Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson shots.”
Trump also stated in the interview the vaccines were effective:
An excerpt from the Candace Owen interview with Trump’s statements:
Trump made several statements that the COVID-19 vaccines were safe:
Trump stated during a rally in Alabama that "I recommend take the vaccines. I did it. It's good. Take the vaccines.” He additionally vouched for the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines:
A video of his comments at the Alabama rally:
Trump stated “I came up with the vaccine” and claimed the COVID-19 vaccines are “going to save the world,” at an event in Arizona in July 2021:
In a video by The Washington Post featuring statements made by Trump endorsing the vaccine, Trump claimed the following:
That everybody should get vaccinated
The COVID-19 vaccines were 95% effective or potentially more than 95% effective
“I would recommend it [COVID-19 vaccines] to a lot of people and a lot of those people voted for me.”
“It’s a great vaccine. It’s a safe vaccine.”
“The vaccines do work and they are effective.”
He knows he saved million so lives throughout the world because of COVID-19 vaccines
The COVID-19 vaccines are “tremendously successful.”
During Trump’s first in-person White House briefing after NBC and other outlets called the 2020 election for Joe Biden, Trump made the following claims and statements:
“The past 9 months my administration has initiated the single greatest mobilization in US history, pioneering, developing and manufacturing therapies and vaccines in record time…No medical breakthrough of this scope or magnitude has ever been achieved this rapidly…and we’re very proud of it, and had tremendous help from the military, Generals, Admirals, and many of the great people of the White House.”
“As a result of Operation Warp Speed, Phizer announced on Monday that its China Virus vaccine is more than 90% effective.” During this quote, CNBC placed the stock tickers of Phizer, Merck, and Gilead Sciences on the screen.
Gilead is mentioned in the Book of Hosea:
“These [COVID-19 vaccines] are coming from the greatest companies anywhere in the world, greatest labs in the world…”
The vaccine will be given EUA
While the average vaccine takes eight years, Trump did it in nine months and is (5 times faster)
By giving the vaccine to high-risk patients, cases will decline and will end this phase of the pandemic
The US has the best COVID-19 testing in the world
Entered an agreement with Eli Lilly for enough remdesivir to treat 800,000 patients
“Every single request” for ventilators for COVID-19
On December 12, 2020, Trump announced the Phizer COVID-19 vaccine was approved for EUA status by the FDA. In the video announcement, Trump stated the following:
“Our nation has achieved a medical miracle. We have delivered a safe and effective vaccine in just nine months. This is one of the greatest scientific accomplishments in history. It will save millions of lives and soon end the pandemic once and for all.
“We have given Phizer and other companies a great deal of money hoping this [FDA EUA approval] would be the outcome.”
“Phizer and Moderna have announced their vaccine is approximately 95% effective…these vaccines are also very safe.”
“The clinical trials…were far larger than normal and had no serious side effects.”
“Through Operation Warp Speed my administration provided a total of $14 billion to accelerate vaccine development and to manufacture all of the top candidates in advance.”
“This will quickly and dramatically reduce deaths and hospitalizations.”
“The United States is the first nation in the world to produce a verifiably safe and effective vaccine.”
“A vaccine will vanquish the pandemic and return life back to normal.”
In a Yahoo Finance interview in October 2021, Trump commented that “I thought a very bad statement was when they did a pause on Johnson & Johnson. I think that frightened people. It was a bad thing to do.”
During the same interview, the talking head claimed it was “the unvaccinated that are contributing to why it’s [COVID-19] lingering (since then, it’s been confirmed .” He then asked Trump what he would say to “those people,” to which Trump commented “When I was President, everyone wanted to get the vaccine…I think it’s because they don’t trust Biden.”
Trump claimed to be “the father” of the COVID-19 vaccines:
Trump stated he wanted everyone to remember he was responsible for the COVID-19 vaccine:
Trump called the vaccine “one of the greatest miracles of the ages:”
A study published in April 2021 involved creating an ad using Fox News footage of Trump endorsing the COVID-19 vaccine to see if Trump’s endorsement would increase vaccination:
The basic hypothesis of the study was that ads of Trump endorsing the COVID-19 vaccine would increase vaccination since unvaccinated Americans were more likely to support Trump then Biden or other politicians/public figures. This study was published after January 6th, which resulted in impeachment proceedings against Trump and the association of Trump loyalists with domestic extremism. Thus, it is interesting to note the academics involved in the survey were using the endorsements of a man accused of orchestrating a violent insurrection to promote vaccination. So despite Trump and his MAGA movement being represented by politicians and the DOJ as extremist, boosting Trump’s visibility was apparently acceptable so long as it got more shots in arms.
Additionally, the study wrote that only 39-40% of unvaccinated Americans had a “great deal of confidence” in Donald Trump “when it comes to advising you on taking the COVID-19 vaccine.”
The Abstract of the study:
Some highlights from the study:
The researchers articulated their hypothesis as follows:
“We posited that a remedy for this partisan divide might arise from mechanisms similar to those that created the disparity in the first place: partisan cues. Research shows that partisans form preferences by following cues from their party leaders. We hypothesized that messages publicizing Donald Trump’s support for COVID-19 vaccines—support Trump did little to advertise after leaving the White House—might cue the vaccine-hesitant among his supporters to get vaccinated themselves. By using both Trump and Fox—both of whom have long been inconsistent messengers about the seriousness of the pandemic…we created a counterstereotypical messenger, which theory predicts can be a particularly powerful catalyst:”
The attitude that Americans will blindly follow the statements or demands of political party leaders demonstrates why the establishment is amplifying Trump as a cult of personality while also using the Trump cult of personality to demonstrate that the “political right” is a threat (ie, they are creating the very problem they complain about: Trump loyalism).
The researchers point out that the validity of the argument matters less than the person who poses the argument (which is an ad hominem logic fallacy).
“Previous research has demonstrated that message persuasiveness rarely hinges on argument quality, because evaluating quality requires effortful information processing that many people avoid. Instead, people tend to rely on mental shortcuts, such as beliefs about a source’s credibility, to decide whether to accept or reject new information
“Donald Trump has an additional advantage: because Republicans have become identified with skepticism about the severity of the COVID-19 virus and COVID vaccines, a provaccine message from the leader of the Republican Party qualifies as counter-stereotypical—and counter-stereotypical messages have been shown to evoke more effortful mental processing.”
Researchers encouraging Americans to engage in ad hominem logic fallacies is likely not beneficial, as it will decrease the logical reasoning skills of the society by amplifying and rewarding individuals for engaging in logic fallacies (such as basing medical decisions on what politicians claim on television).
The researchers used clips that were primarily from content that aired on Fox’s networks to craft their Trump vaccine promotional ad:
The PSA was placed on “150,284 distinct YouTube channels, several hundred websites, and 10,072 mobile apps.”
The region where the researcher’s PSA was advertised:
“But if politics characterizes one aspect of the problem, it might also point to part of a solution. We find that positioning Donald Trump and Fox News as counterintuitive messenger is a cost-effective way to overcome hesitancy among people who still had not been vaccinated, months after the vaccines became widely available.” This demonstrates the researchers believe polarization is a benefit when an individual like Trump can be used to read an audience the establishment is unable to develop trust with:
He’s an idiot for still backing this rubbish. Absolutely clueless about it. He would get booed whenever he’d bring it up at a rally. He either got played, or is part of the game and neither sit well with me. Who is giving him advice these days? If he were wise, he’d distance himself from this whole mess because the Dems are going to pound him with it during his campaign. With the tsunami of vax injuries starting to pile up, they’ll gladly push all the fault at his feet and use all these comments against him