WATCH: Operation Warp Speed Chief Says He Has No Idea What Trump’s Vaccine Executive Order Actually Does
The Chief Science Adviser for Operation Warp Speed admitted to George Stephanopoulos that he does not understand President Donald Trump’s planned Executive Order prioritizing Covid-19 vaccines for American citizens, which he will sign at a Tuesday event.
Dr. Moncef Slaoui appeared on Good Morning America Tuesday morning and discussed the current progress being made by the vaccine, in light of a recent New York Times report that suggested the Trump administration passed on purchasing vaccines from Pfizer last summer, which will make millions of doses available first for other countries that did.
Stephanopoulos opened the interview asking, “Let’s talk about this issue with passing on the vaccines from Pfizer last summer. What Happened?”
Slaoui first reminded viewers about Operation Warp Speed’s initial strategy of building a portfolio of six different vaccines to “manage the risk that some may work and some may not work, but also ensure that as more than one would work we would accumulate vaccine from this portfolio of vaccines.” He added that, if somebody approached him “in the summer, and said, ‘let’s buy more of this vaccine or that vaccine,’ no one reasonably would buy more from any one of those vaccines because we didn’t know which one would work and which may be better than the other.”
Stephanopoulos then pressed, noting that Pfizer has said they won’t have the doses America needs until June or July due to supply chain issues. “Anything the government can do, ‘Operation Warp Speed’ can do right now to help them with the supply chain issues and make sure we can get vaccines to people who need them as stand as possible?” the GMA anchor asked.
“We are comfortable with getting vaccines to the people who need them as soon as possible,” Slauoi replied, noting that there several other vaccine suppliers from other companies such as Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca, to name two. “We’ll have tens of millions of doses from those vaccines, you know, participating to the volume of vaccines we need to immunize the U.S. population as we promised all of it by the middle of the year, 2021 and that’s still on track.”
Stephanopoulos then turned to President Trump’s planned Executive Order, admitting that he doesn’t quite understand it.
CNN has reported that the signing of the EO is planned during a Tuesday vaccine summit at the White House, “with the hope that the order will allay fears that there will not be enough doses of the vaccine to go around after distribution begins.”
White House officials described to CNN the order as a “reaffirmation of the President’s commitment to America first.”
Or in other words, it’s purely a political play, according to an administration official who asked not to be identified to CNN; who said there are no specifics on how the executive order will accomplish what it purportedly aims to.
“He’s saying foreign countries aren’t going to be able to get the vaccine until everybody here in the United States gets it,” Stephanopoulos noted. “It sounds like the problem is the opposite. Pfizer has made deals with other countries that are going to limit the supply here.”
Dr. Slaoui admitted that he didn’t understand the benefits of what clearly looks like a pure political play. “Frankly, I don’t know, and, frankly, I’m staying out of this. I can’t comment.”
“You don’t know?” Stephanopoulos pressed, noting, “But you’re the Chief Science Adviser for “Operation Warp Speed.”
“Our work is, you know, rolling. We have plans,” Dr. Slaoui replied. “We feel that we can deliver the vaccines as needs, so I don’t know exactly what this order is about.”
To be clear, Dr. Slaoui’s admission that he didn’t understand Trump’s planned EO’s reasoning was not parading his ignorance. In fact, it appeared that he was taking the high road and chose not to dismiss the Commander in Chief on national television.
Watch above via ABC.
