In May 2020, four months after COVID-19 hit the U.S. and had already been blamed for the deaths of at least 86,000 Americans, then-President Donald Trump announced a new initiative to help combat the virus: Operation Warp Speed.
"That means big, and it means fast, a massive scientific, industrial and logistical endeavor unlike anything our country has seen since the Manhattan Project," he said at the time. The public-private partnership aimed to have "safe and effective" vaccines available to Americans by January 2021 in what his HHS Secretary Alex Azar said would be "one of the greatest scientific and humanitarian accomplishments in history."
But you know the rest of the story. Trump didn't get a second term, and Joe Biden, who claimed as president-elect that he didn't support vaccine mandates, tried to coerce nearly all Americans into getting the jab. Many who were skeptical or didn't want it felt they had no choice as their jobs were on the line. Those who refused to give in lost careers they, in many cases, had spent a lifetime building. Additionally, scores of those who got the shot are now living with its effects, as Sen. Ron Johnson's December 2022 roundtable discussion highlighted, while "died suddenly" reports now seem to be on the rise. And that's not even getting into a discussion about the jab's efficacy.
That's why, with Trump continuing to praise the vaccine, the issue has irked many of his most loyal supporters, and it's one Team DeSantis is jumping all over, though his tune has changed about the vaccine over the last couple of years.
When an Iowa voter confronted Trump about it, saying, "We have lost people because you supported the jab," the former president told the woman a vaccine was something Americans wanted, and he delivered.
"Everybody wanted a vaccine at that time, and I was able to do something that nobody else could have done, getting it done very, very rapidly," he replied. "But I never was for mandates. I thought the mandates were terrible."
JUST NOW: Iowa voter tells Trump "we have lost people because you supported the jab."
— DeSantis War Room 🐊 (@DeSantisWarRoom) June 1, 2023
Trump responds by praising the COVID mRNA shots, doesn't acknowledge any of the adverse effects.
"I was able to do something that nobody else could have done...There's a big portion of the… pic.twitter.com/rfuj4jqybS
Trump's team was quick to hit back, reminding voters where DeSantis stood on the issue, though the clip was from January 2021, when the vaccines were first rolled out.
@CommunityNotes @HelpfulNotes Context Needed: Trump War Room is responding to a clip of Trump TODAY, with a DeSantis clip from January 2021. https://t.co/NhK2eR5IZg
— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) June 1, 2023
Get ready for some serious mudslinging over this issue between the two camps in the months ahead.
