In the closing months of Donald Trump’s tenure, several of the then president’s top advisers monitored a growing concern: that the reluctance to use the COVID-19 vaccine, particularly among Republicans and Trump supporters, was going to be a major problem as the United States embarked on its mission to vaccinate millions.
According to three people familiar with the case, then-President Trump was repeatedly warned by some of his closest advisers and government officials about this MAGA-specific issue during his final weeks as a leader of the free world. But in the two months since President Joe Biden took over the White House, polls show that dislike for the new coronavirus vaccines remains markedly higher among Trump fans and GOP voters than among Liberals and Biden supporters. That reality has sparked great concern among public health officials and experts, frustrating some of the ex-president’s friends and allies that Trump, from his new Florida home, is no longer doing his best to reach his base and fight. the problem.
‘I practically begged him to go out there all the time [during his post-presidency] and make videos calling on his supporters who are reluctant to take their photos, ”said a person close to Trump. “The last time I checked in, I had never heard of a positive move in that direction.”
In a small number of public appearances and TV interviews lately, the former president has been encouraging his true believers – sometimes on a side note – to get vaccinated, but he’s yet to get started on something close to a vigorous campaign to get his bulky megaphone to use on the internet. subjects. Furthermore, it was not publicly revealed that he and then-first lady Melania Trump had been vaccinated until nearly a month and a half after he ceased to be president.
Michael Caputo, a former Trump campaign advisor who served as an assistant secretary of public affairs in the Department of Health and Human Services, told The Daily Beast that in September, shortly before he was diagnosed with cancer and left the administration, he also spoke with the president on the anti-vaccine sentiment rapidly rising among MAGA believers.
“Donald Trump and I had a conversation about broader issues, and I mentioned it briefly,” he said. “It was a cursory conversation in the Oval Office in September, between meetings, and I mentioned that vaccine reluctance was likely to be a major problem, especially among Republicans and Trump supporters. And he said, “Yes, I understand, and it’s a problem.” I was told that there were other talks left after I left, and talks with the president continued … We started to get more and more suspicious about [anti-vaccine sentiment on the right] when I left. We spoke at HHS in August and said it was ironic that the most hesitant vaccines among us were our friends, our allies. And we still face that question. “
By November, Trump’s focus had shifted largely – not to his management of the global pandemic that had torpedoed the US economy and killed hundreds of thousands of Americans, but to his and Republican battles and anti-democratic crusade to overturn Biden’s clear victory. in the 2020 presidential competition.
In the weeks since Biden’s inauguration, Trump has only sporadically called on his supporters to get their COVID vaccines, including during his headlining speech at last month’s annual Conservative Political Action Conference, and he has yet to set up something resembling a sustained campaign or effort. Last week, Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private club and residence in Palm Beach, Florida, had to partially close due to a new coronavirus outbreak.
Recent polls have consistently found that Trump fans and Republican men are some of the demographics most likely to decline or be skeptical about getting a coronavirus vaccine.
Since taking up his post-presidency, Trump has occasionally spoken casually to certain confidants about the prospect of starring in his own videos or advertisements promoting the vaccines, as well as the successes of Operation Warp Speed of his government, said two people. with direct knowledge of the conversations. However, when asked if such videos had already been produced, a Trump advisor said last week that “nothing was planned” in terms of release at this point.
Earlier this month, former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter all starred in a public service announcement to convince more Americans to get vaccinated against the virus. Trump, the two sources have reported, has said privately that he does not want to play in PSAs with the other former presidents, most of whom he openly despises.
And for some prominent Trump allies, the 45th US president’s last pleas have simply not sunk. MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, an on-again-off-again Trump adviser who also served as the co-chair of the Trump reelection campaign in Minnesota, claimed in a recent interview that the ex-president’s CPAC speech was not actually fans begged to be vaccinated (although they were), adding that his upcoming planned social media website will be a “ free speech ” where users can post as much anti-vaccine content as they want, for example. “I’ll never take it … and it’s against my religion,” Lindell insisted.
Conversations like this among MAGA megafans sound very familiar to other former Trump lieutenants, some of whom clash with fellow ex-president supporters who refuse to be vaccinated amid the ongoing pressure from the Biden administration and local and national authorities. . governments. Caputo said that in his time outside the government and in the fight against cancer, he has made it a priority to reach out to as many Trump supporters online and in his community as possible to try to convince them to take their photos.
“I’ve been on Facebook, I’ve attended Republican committee meetings, I’ve done Zoom meetings, there’s a bikers hangout near me called Kipp’s with life-sized cutouts of President Trump and Melania where you can take your photo there – it are Johnny Cash memorabilia and Donald Trump memorabilia from top to bottom. I would go there and argue with people about it, “he said.” Some of my best friends are anti-vaccine or anti-mask, or even COVID- deniers who believe it’s like the flu. One of my friends is anti-mask and believes COVID was a plot to overthrow Donald Trump – now he has COVID. And these are the people I’m talking to. “
Asked what his former boss could do now to get more Republicans on board with COVID-19 vaccination, Caputo replied, “In my opinion, the former president could run a PSA campaign with Melania Trump. And the national television networks have to broadcast this now, in their primetime programming. “
Trump has remained almost entirely MIA on this matter for the time being. And when he has held his head up in public to urge his anti-vaccine supporters to change his mind, he has sometimes moved in the direction of both sides.
“I would recommend it, and I would recommend it to a lot of people who don’t want to get it. And a lot of those people voted for me frankly,” Trump said in a phone interview on Fox News earlier this month. “But you know, again, we have our freedoms and we have to live by that, and I agree,” the ex-president continued before adding, “But it’s a great vaccine, it’s a safe vaccine., and it’s something that works. “