The Biden Administration has pretty much hit a wall when it comes to promoting the vaccine to the American people.
Large swaths of the African-American community, whose vaccine hesitancy is reflected in the artful positions voiced by Jonathan Isaac and Draymond Green, continue to feel distrustful of the cajoling, mandating and bullying from the White House.
As our Salem colleague Hugh Hewitt points out in the Washington Post, Dr. Anthony Fauci's ongoing and relentless harping continues to fall on deaf and defiant ears due to the mounting suspicions that his previous prevarications were more political than strictly scientific. Yet, Biden not only stands by Fauci but continues to rely on his damaged message to lead the vaccine charge with diminishing returns.
If Biden's concerns over the unvaccinated are genuine, he'd be open to a new messenger to make the case for getting the jab.
Enter an unlikely option: former President Donald J. Trump.
In a wide-ranging interview with Amber Athey of The Spectator, Trump projected a message embracing the effectiveness of the vaccine while simultaneously championing the spirit of freedom embedded in so many Americans' desire to not be mandated to get the shot just because Biden tells them to.
"Look, I'm a believer of the vaccine. I'm the one that came up with it in nine months or less," Trump told Athey. "And I think millions and millions of people, I think lives have been saved all over the world. I'm very proud of the vaccine, and they could have never done it. I did it in less than nine months. We're supposed to be five years, and at the end of five years, most people thought you wouldn't have it."
This basic fact still has eluded the lips of our current president. He can't bring himself to spend any time praising his predecessor and highlighting the miracle of the vaccine that Trump was able to inspire by harnessing American ingenuity and getting the government's bureaucracy out of the way of industry and innovation.
Trump went on to affirm the vaccine's effectiveness while reiterating his disdain for mandates.
"And it does work. It's very effective — came up with three of them and came up with other things, like Regeneron therapeutics. So very proud of it. But I also am very proud of the fact that our country is a country that's based on freedoms. You can't force people to do things."
And in those two parallel tracks of thought, Trump is able to achieve what Biden and Fauci have not. He has promoted the vaccines with genuine pride and first-hand endorsement without grandstanding or demeaning those who are still skeptical of the serum while concurrently reiterating our freedoms and lamenting the heavy hand of government mandates that contradict the very essence of the American spirit.
Then Trump made an observation that appears to be lost on the Democrats, CNN anchors and the hosts of every late-night "comedy" show that has turned their monologues over to dimwitted PSAs for government-induced inoculations.
Has anyone asked themselves why the notion of a vaccine mandate wasn't even thought of when Trump was president?
"Very interestingly, when I was president, there was no talk of mandates. You didn't need mandates. Everybody wanted to get the vaccine," Trump observed. "And since then, I don't know. It's a lack of trust of Biden. You know, they were all speaking badly of it when I was there. And then, as soon as I got out, they went wild on the mandates. So it's sort of interesting. I remember they said that if Trump did it, we're not going to believe in it. Your vice president, she said that. And then, all of a sudden, they changed."
Exactly. There's a fundamental lack of trust in Biden, and the seeds of mistrust for the vaccine were originally sown by Kamala Harris. That latter point probably explains much of the concern in the African-American community.
It's such a simple message but, at this point, Trump may be the only one who can deliver it effectively, and because of Biden's narcissism and the Democrats' TDS, they could never bring themselves to embrace it and him, which calls into question the sincerity of their cause in the first place, doesn't it?
Trump also wisely observed the blunder of Fauci and the Biden regime when they paused the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
"The other thing they did really bad was when they did a pause on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. That was a real setback because most people don't know about Johnson & Johnson. They just know there was a pause on the vaccine, and it was over. It was about six people. I think all of who got better or most of whom got better quickly. So it was a terrible thing to pause it. But no, I believe in the vaccines, but I believe in freedom. You have to have freedom."
Well said, Mr. President.
Amber Athey is also a member of my team on "O'Connor & Company" morning show heard every weekday from 5-9 AM on WMAL in Washington DC.
You can hear the audio from her interview with Trump in the player below, starting at the 44:10 mark.
