Dr. Anthony Fauci, who had criticized Donald Trump’s handling of the pandemic, hopes that the former president will urge his supporters to get vaccinated.
The story: Fauci, the chief medical advisor to the president, made the comments during separate appearances on Fox News and NBC News. Fauci weighed in on the issue after Fox News host Chris Wallace noted that Trump has not made public announcement endorsing vaccination. The host also pointed to a poll that found a little under half of the respondents who identified as Republican men said they will not get vaccinated. 47% of those who supported Trump in the 2020 election said the same thing.
The director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases suggested that Trump could turn things around if he calls on his supporters to receive a vaccine.
What Fauci said: Fauci, who also served as health advisor to the president, acknowledged Trump’s influence.
It “would make all the difference in the world,” Fauci said. “He’s a very widely popular person among Republicans.”
“If he came out and said: ‘Go and get vaccinated, it’s really important for your health, the health of your family and the health of the country,’ it seems absolutely inevitable that the vast majority of people who are his close followers would listen to him. He’s such a strongly popular person. I cannot imagine that if he comes out that they would not get vaccinated. It would be very helpful to the effort for that to happen.”
“I mean clearly Operation Warp Speed started in the Trump administration. It was very successful in getting us the vaccines we have right now. It seems like an intrinsic contradiction, the fact that you had a program that was started during his presidency and he’s not out telling people to get vaccinated. I wish he would. He has such an incredible influence over people in the Republican Party. It would really be a game-changer if he did.”
"I'm very surprised at the high percentage of Republicans who say they don't want to get vaccinated." pic.twitter.com/mhWIeaKtZN
— Peter Wade (@brooklynmutt) March 14, 2021
“I hope he does because the numbers that you gave are so disturbing,” Fauci told NBC News’ Chuck Todd. “How such a large proportion of a certain group of people would not want to get vaccinated merely because of political consideration. It makes absolutely no sense. What is the problem here?” Fauci asked. “This is a vaccine that is going to be lifesaving for millions of people. How some groups would not want to do it for reasons that I just don’t understand.”
Worth noting: Fauci has slammed the former president’s response to the pandemic on several occasions, suggesting he made the spread of the virus in the U.S. worse.
In a CNN interview two days after Biden’s inauguration, Fauci said Trump “very likely” cost lives because he was not entirely honest with the American people. In another interview on the network, he said it was “really almost self-evident” that “his denial and lack of facts contributed to this level of loss,” as host Alisyn Camerota put it.
He also told the New York Times that if he did not push back against the former president, he would have been “compromising my own integrity and be giving a false message to the world.”
Hey …. visit CNN sometime and ask yourself, “Would this be any different if it were produced by the Democratic party?” #DontTrustTheMedia
Had these goofballs listened to Trump in January 2020 none of this crap probably would have happened. Trump stopped the flights to and from China and then Nasty Nancy goes to Chinatown and blasts what Trump had done calling it racist and whatever and encouraged people to come on down to Chinatown and enjoy themselves. The ones in denial were the liberal dems. I also read that the CDC kept the big tech companies informed about everything going on with the Covid vaccine. I am assuming the CDC thought that the big tech companies were the ones who had influence over the people; guess he found out that was not exactly true. So now he wants Trump to do the job that Fauci and his morons should have done.
Chris Wallace is such an ass. The president (the real one) fast tracked and made possible the vaccine. He got the vaccinations funded and set up distribution through military logistics. Doesn’t that say “I want people to get the vaccine if they want it?” Faucci is a cancer. He is another puppet of the Cabal and needs to be removed from all government functions.
[…] recent comments: Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden, called out Trump for not “telling his people to get vaccinated.” He made the comments during […]