President Donald Trump said this week that he would not mandate Covid-19 vaccinations for Americans if he were in office because he would be able to “convince people” to take it voluntarily in contrast to the Biden administration.
“I wouldn’t say to anybody, ‘You have to.’ But I would sell it. Look, I’m very proud of what we did with the vaccines,” Trump told Bill O’Reilly in an interview on The First TV.
“It was supposed to take five years and they said it wasn’t going to work,” said Trump. “I did three vaccines in less than nine months and they do work, they work really well.”
Trump continued, “I would convince people, take it. I don’t want to push it. When I was president, there was no talk about mandates or anything. Everybody wanted the vaccine. Now a lot of people don’t want it.”
The Trump administration’s Covid-19 vaccine development program, Operation Warp Speed, devoted billions of dollars to research to create a vaccination against the coronavirus. The Pfizer vaccine was distributed shortly after the 2020 election during President Trump’s term, despite Biden’s false claims that there was no vaccine until he took office.
“I’m very proud of it. I saved millions of lives, but people have to have their freedoms,” Trump told the John Fredericks Show.
While the 45th president has urged Americans to get vaccinated, he has stressed that it should be their own personal choice to do so.
“I believe totally in your freedoms. I do, you’re free, you got to do what you have to do,” Trump told supporters during an August rally in Alabama. “But I recommend taking the vaccines. I did it, it’s good, take the vaccines.”
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris expressed skepticism toward the vaccine last year and told supporters that they would not get the vaccine if Trump told them to do so.
“If the public health professionals, if Dr. Fauci, if the doctors tell us that we should take it, I’ll be the first in line to take it,” said Harris during last year’s vice dresidential debate. “But if Donald Trump tells us that we should take it, I’m not taking it.”
Biden and Harris, who have given themselves credit for the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed, have now given American workers an ultimatum. Federal workers must receive a Covid-19 vaccination by Dec. 8 or they will lose their jobs.
“This is not about freedom or personal choice,” Biden said in his Sept. 9 address to the nation. “We’ve been patient but our patience is wearing thin and your refusal has cost all of us,” he added.
According to the CDC, more than 57 percent of Americans are fully vaccinated while nearly 66 percent of American have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccination.
