Trump encourages Americans to get COVID shot. ‘It’s a safe vaccine’
Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday encouraged his supporters to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
“I would recommend it,” Trump said during an interview on Fox News. “And I would recommend it to a lot of people that don’t want to get it and a lot of those people voted for me, frankly. But again, we have our freedoms and we have to live by that and I agree with that also.
“But it is a great vaccine,” he continued. “It is a safe vaccine and it is something that works.”
Trump and former first lady Melania Trump got vaccinated in January before they left the White House, The New York Times reported.
Trump first recommended his supporters get the vaccine during the Conservative Political Action Conference in Florida in February, telling the crowd “everybody go get your shot.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert and chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden, said on “Fox News Sunday” that it would be “very helpful” if Trump encouraged his followers to get the vaccine.
“I’m very surprised by the number of Republicans who say they won’t get vaccinated,” Fauci said, adding that “it would make all the difference in the world” if Trump were to express support for vaccines.
An NPR-PBS NewsHour-Marist poll released last week shows that around half of Republican men and 47% of people who supported Trump in the last election said they wouldn’t be vaccinated even if the shots are available to them. Meanwhile, only 10% of supporters of Biden said they wouldn’t get vaccinated, according to the poll.
The survey conducted Mar. 3-8 had a sample size of 1,227 adults with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.
All living former presidents and first ladies — except for both Donald and Melania Trump — appeared in two advertisements earlier this month to encourage Americans to get the coronavirus vaccine, McClatchy News previously reported.
Former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter and former first ladies Michelle Obama, Laura Bush, Hillary Clinton and Rosalynn Carter appeared in an ad called “It’s Up To You,” which showed them getting their shots while discussing the importance of the vaccine.
Trump released a statement earlier this month taking credit for the availability of the vaccines, saying that if he hadn’t been 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 said.
This story was originally published March 17, 2021 at 9:33 AM with the headline "Trump encourages Americans to get COVID shot. ‘It’s a safe vaccine’."