Former President Donald Trump wants Americans, and especially his supporters, to get the coronavirus vaccine.
“I’m all in favor of the vaccine,” Trump told New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin over the phone Thursday. “It’s one of the great achievements, a true miracle, and not only for the United States. We’re saving tens of millions of lives throughout the world. We’re saving entire countries.”
- The former president received his first dose of the vaccine in the White House in January and the second shot in Florida, he told Goodwin.
- Melania Trump, the former first lady, has also been vaccinated, Trump said.
“If we didn’t have a vaccine, it would have been just like the 1918 Spanish flu,” Trump told the New York Post. The 1919 pandemic is estimated to have killed “at least 50 million” people globally, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. COVID-19 — so far — has killed around 3 million people, according to a Johns Hopkins tally.
Trump believes in vaccine
The New York Post interview wasn’t the first time former President Trump has tried to encourage his supporters to get the coronavirus vaccine this week.
At a Mar-a-Lago interview on Monday, Trump told Fox News’ host Sean Hannity that he’d been asked to make a commercial supporting coronavirus vaccine, “because a lot of our people don’t want to take vaccine.”
- “Do you encourage people to get it?,” Hannity asked the former president. “I encourage them to take it. I do,” Trump responded.
- “I had it and I took it,” Trump told the Fox News host of getting the coronavirus and also receiving the vaccine. “Because I believe.”
Four former presidents united to encourage vaccination
Former presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama are each featured in a video by the Ad Council which shows them, and the former first ladies, getting the coronavirus vaccine.
- “This vaccine means hope, said Obama in the video. “It will protect you and those you love from this dangerous and deadly disease.”
- “In order to get rid of this pandemic, it’s important for our fellow citizens to get vaccinated,” Bush said.
The vaccine partisan divide is growing
A recent Pew Research Center study found that Republicans say they are less likely to get the coronavirus vaccine than Democrats.
- “Democrats are now 27 percentage points more likely than Republicans to say they plan to get, or have already received, a coronavirus vaccine (83% to 56%),” according to Pew.
- “This gap is wider than those seen at multiple points in 2020,” Pew’s study showed.