Dr. Anthony Fauci defended Vice President Kamala Harris claiming the Trump administration had no national plan for distributing the two types of COVID-19 vaccines that were created under Operation Warp Speed. According to Harris, "we're starting from scratch" with regards to a national distribution plan.
This was despite the fact early on in the Biden administration, Fauci said at a White House press conference they were not "starting from scratch."
When asked about Harris' comment during an interview with CNN on Tuesday, Fauci seemingly reversed himself and said she actually meant Trump's administration had no national plan for getting the shots into people's arms.
“Well, what I think the Vice President is referring to is that the actual plan of getting the vaccine doses into people’s arms was really rather vague. I mean, it was not a well-coordinated plan," Fauci said.
"Getting the vaccines made, getting them shipped through Operation Warp Speed was okay. But I believe what the Vice President is referring to is what is the process of actually getting these doses into people. That is something that we had to get much better organized now, with getting the community vaccine centers, getting the pharmacies involved, getting mobile units involved. So that is what I believe she was referring to," he added.
Axios got into some hot water after they deleted a tweet with the full context that Fauci provided about not "starting from scratch" when they posted the video with Harris' claim. In the article for the Harris interview, Axios did not include Fauci's quote they had included in the first tweet.