Jake Tapper: Trump’s Operation Warp Speed Success Doesn’t Erase the ‘Undermining of Science’ and ‘Promotion of Quackery’ for Months

CNN’s Jake Tapper said on Sunday that the successful U.S. vaccine rollout should be credited in part to former President Donald Trump and Operation Warp Speed.

However, he added, that doesn’t mean the rest of Trump’s record on the pandemic should be overlooked or brushed aside.

Tapper closed out State of the Union sharing his own vaccination and heralding the “miracle of modern science” that got us to this point.

“Thank God for everyone involved at Pfizer, at Moderna, at Johnson & Johnson, and everyone affiliated with Operation Warp Speed, from the scientists to the officials that signed off on the funding, including, yes, former President Trump,” he said.

Tapper brought up how some Trump supporters aren’t happy that President Joe Biden isn’t giving his predecessor more credit, and while he said the administration could “certainly be more gracious about it,” the CNN anchor suggested that part of the reason is “Trump screwed up so many other aspects of the response to the pandemic.”

“The clear derelictions of duty, the refusal to acknowledge what was happening, the undermining of science and scientists, the mocking of those who wore masks, the attacks on Democratic governors for trying to take safety precautions, the promotion of quackery, and mishandling that had real tangible impact,” he reviewed.

Tapper showed the clip of Dr. Deborah Birx saying most covid deaths could have been mitigated after that initial surge.

“Remember when President Trump said that the administration’s mitigation efforts’ success would be if they had only between 100,000 and 240,000 Americans dead, and now the number is more than 550,000. These are your fellow Americans who fell in the red, blood red.”

He brought up how the Biden White House lowered the American flag to half-staff in honor of Capitol Police Officer William Evans. Tapper said doing that is just “normal, human, decent behavior” we expect from presidents, which is why it was stunning months ago when the Trump White House did not do the same for Officer Brian Sicknick until a few days later.

Tapper went back to the pandemic to say that while Trump did help the country get vaccines quickly, “facts do not exist in a vacuum detached from other less pleasant facts.”

You can watch above, via CNN.

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