Trump Encourages Vaccines — Then Rips Mandates and Says Pandemic is ‘Going to Phase Out’ Even if People Don’t Get Vaxxed
President Donald Trump praised the Covid vaccines, but then slammed vaccine mandates and said that the pandemic will “phase out” even if millions of people don’t get vaccinated.
Trump’s interview with Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep started better than it ended — Trump hung up on Inskeep — with a call for people to get vaccinated. But things took a turn quickly.
“What advice would you give to Americans who haven’t chosen to get vaccinated?” Inskeep asked, obviously hoping for Trump’s pro-vaccine messaging streak to continue.
Trump began by slamming an unidentified vaccine mandate, claiming that “the mandate is really hurting our country. Now that’s advice to an administration more so than to the Americans. A lot of Americans aren’t standing for it, and it’s hurting our country. It’s hurting our economy very badly.”
“And being very — the proud person that did so well with therapeutics and, and vaccines and everything else and getting them done in record times, you know, I — I have a lot to say on the subject. And one of the things I say is they have to start promoting and making the therapeutics more available, because we have great therapeutics, too, in addition to the vaccines,” Trump added.
“What is the advice on the vaccines, though?” Inskeep re-asked.
“The vaccines, I recommend taking them, but I think that has to be an individual choice,” Trump said, and went on to add “They can’t be mandated, as the expression goes” because there is apparently an expression that goes like that.
“Personally, I feel very comfortable having taken them. I’ve had absolutely no reverberation,” Trump said.
Then Inskeep asked “Do you think the pandemic will continue as long as millions of people do choose not to vaccinate?”
I think it’s going to phase out. You know, there are many people that have had it, if you look at the numbers. I don’t know why they would be getting the vaccine for the most part, unless they were at a certain age group and they had certain problems, whether it’s the high blood pressure —
Yeah.
— the diabetes and, you know, various things in particular. But, you know, we — the administration has to start giving credit to people that had the China plague — or call it whatever you want. But it came out of China, and it’s a disaster for the world, to —
People can be — I’ll mention that people can be reinfected, but I want to move on. South Dakota —
No, they can be. They can be. But generally speaking, it’s not as bad.
Watch above via NPR.
