CNN’s Anderson Cooper Gives Trump Credit for Operation Warp Speed — But Rips Broken Vaccine Promises and Everything Else

CNN host Anderson Cooper gave former president Donald Trump credit for funding Operation Warp Speed, but then lambasted the current Florida resident for a raft of broken promises on the coronavirus vaccine, and for pretty much everything else about the last administration’s Covid response.

Many in the media have been clamoring for Trump to get credit for the success of the current vaccination program after President Joe Biden failed to do so — and even criticized his predecessor’s efforts — during his address to the nation this week on the anniversary of the national COVID-19 shutdown.

On Friday night’s edition of AC360, Cooper delivered the requested credit — along with a long list of criticisms, complete with video receipts:

Operation Warp Speed pumped billions of dollars into the effort and is credited for taking the financial risk out of testing and manufacturing vaccines for companies that might otherwise not have been willing to take the chances they did. It was wildly successful.

If the former President wants any credit for that, which he certainly deserves, he also has to accept responsibility for the failures of his administration, which were many on testing, prevention and leadership which contributed to the sickening death toll.

He also has to own up to the lies and the string of wild promises and moving goalposts.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We expect to have a hundred million doses of vaccine available, certainly before the end of the year.

We’ll have manufactured at least 100 million vaccine doses before the end of the year, and likely much more than that.

We will deliver 100 million doses of a safe vaccine before the end of the year.

If authorized, tens of millions of vaccine doses will be available this month.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: So, plenty of promises, not much follow through. Vaccine delivery began in mid-December. Just a few days later, here was the headline. “The head of Operation Warp Speed apologizes for shortfalls in vaccine deliveries to at least 14 states.” And so it went, all throughout the closing days of the last administration, this was not a priority for the outgoing President who was focused mainly on overturning the election and making what was a life-saving effort by so many dedicated people all about himself.

Reading a tweet since taken down from just after the election, “The @USFDA and the Democrats didn’t want to have me get a vaccine win prior to the election, so instead it came out five days later, as I’ve said all along.”

Never mind ending a pandemic, where was his Election Day shot in the arm? The irony is, a President who has successfully handled a dire national emergency and brought the country safely through it would likely have won re-election in a landslide.

Instead, he made recognizing the very existence of a killer virus, a test of political loyalty and did the same for mask wearing, holding one dangerous rally after another as the outbreak accelerated. He turned his own brush with the virus into another chance to teach all the wrong lessons, which absent a vaccine were lessons in how to get sick and possibly die.

I mean, think about that? Without a vaccine, modeling safe behavior is all you can do, yet, he did the opposite all the time and reveled in it.

And unlike the current President, as well as Presidents Obama, Bush, Clinton and Carter, when the time came for them to get vaccinated and set the example for as many vaccine hesitant followers, he got his in secret, so did his wife and they never said a word.

Watch the clip above via CNN.