Trump: COVID vaccine ‘not a great thing to talk about,’ but saved ‘100 million people’
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (FLV) – Amid new comments from former President Donald Trump on COVID-19 vaccines and Dr. Anthony Fauci, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign grilled the former president on both issues.
On the vaccines, Trump said in a Fox News interview with Bret Baier that because many Republicans don’t like the vaccines “for some reason,” he can’t talk about them.
“Did the COVID vaccine work?” Baier asked the former president.
“It’s such an interesting question because not only that, I also did the Regeneron,” Trump replied, referring to a form of COVID-19 treatment.
Trump then pointed to a “very smart” “Democrat friend” who supported Trump’s fast-tracking of the COVID-19 vaccines via Operation Warp Speed.
“He said you may have saved in the world, throughout the world, 100 million people, and you never talk about it,” he said. “I said, I really don’t want to talk about it because, as a Republican, it’s not a great thing to talk about.”
“For some reason it’s just not,” he said.
“Because people love the vaccines and people hate the vaccines,” Trump continued.
“TRUMP: ‘For some reason’ people don’t like the mRNA COVID shots,” the DeSantis War Room said. “Trump once again refuses to acknowledge any of the adverse effects.”
DeSantis worked to get a statewide grand jury impaneled to investigate the mRNA vaccine manufacturers.
In another clip, Baier asked Trump if the former president has any regrets surrounding his handling of COVID-19 federal relief spending, and then pointed to multiple videos of Trump saying he locked down the country.
Trump signed a $2.3 trillion dollar spending package in December 2020.
“Do you have regrets about how you handled that?” Baier asked, to Trump shaking his head and saying, “No.”
“We had to artificially close our country,” Trump is heard saying in one of the clips. “Some people wish we never closed it down,” he said in another. “Everything we did was right.”
“Trump shut down the country and has zero regrets,” DeSantis’ team responded.
Trump’s comments on Fauci garnered criticism from U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who said Trump should not be “so proud of keeping Fauci around.”
Fauci was elevated to the task force on handling the coronavirus pandemic and gave regular press briefings.
“Fauci was a menace to the truth,” Paul said. “Talk about a fount of misinformation: it’s Anthony Fauci. more misinformation came out of the government than any other source, so he should’ve fired him.”
Speaking with Baier, Trump was pressed on not firing Fauci, to which the former president replied insisting he did have the authority to fire Fauci but didn’t because “it’s one of those things.”
Paul responded, agreeing that despite civil service rules that prevent Trump from simply firing Fauci, the former president had “no reason” to keep Fauci on the “COVID committee.”
“In fact, if not the lead, he was the committee with the vice president. They met all of the time,” he said. “And they spread the misinformation that [natural] immunity didn’t work.”
Read more about Trump’s interview here.
