President Donald Trump encouraged his followers who are hesitant getting the coronavirus vaccine to go ahead and get the vaccine because it is safe and effective.
“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. It is a safe vaccine and it is something that works.”
Trump made the remarks after Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Sunday that it would be huge if Trump came out and encouraged people to take the vaccine.
“He’s a very widely popular person among Republicans,” Fauci said. “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,” Fauci later added. “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.”