On Wednesday, former President Trump appeared in an interview with conservative commentator Candace Owens, where he pushed back against claims questioning the efficacy of the Wuhan coronavirus vaccines.
In the lengthy “Daily Wire” interview, Owens discussed the vaccine with Trump, where he took credit for the impact the vaccine has made in saving lives and the speed in which they were created.
“I came up with a vaccine. With three vaccines,” Trump told Owens. “All are very, very good. Came up with three of them in less than nine months. It was supposed to take five to 12 years.”
The three vaccines, Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson, started rolling out in late 2020 and early 2021. The federal effort to accelerate the development of COVID-19 vaccines was called “Operation Warp Speed,” which Trump unveiled in May 2020.
In the interview, Owens took a shot at President Biden, telling Trump that more people have died from COVID-19 this year, during Biden’s presidency, despite having vaccines and boosters available.
“Oh no, the vaccines work,” Trump responded.
“The ones who get very sick and go to the hospital are the ones that don’t take the vaccine,” Trump added. “If you take the vaccine, you’re protected.”
Later on, Trump added, “People aren’t dying when they take the vaccine,” and noted that when a breakthrough case emerges, “it’s a very minor form” of COVID-19.
During the interview, Trump also commented on mask mandates and vaccine mandates for children, describing it as “terrible” and saying that he’s against it.
“I think what’s happening is you look at the masks where Fauci and a lot of other people said masks don’t mean anything and all of a sudden he becomes a radical masker,” Trump said. “I don’t like to see the kids with the masks on. They’re sitting in schools. They have a hard enough time sitting in school.”
In an interview with Bill O’Reilly this week, Trump mentioned that he recently got a booster shot. He told Owens that the vaccine is “one of the greatest achievements of mankind.”