Trump son questions timing of vaccine news
DONALD TRUMP JNR questioned the “nefarious” timing of Pfizer’s vaccine study announcement yesterday, two days after Joe Biden was declared the winner of a bitterly fought election.
The president’s eldest son appeared to insinuate that the pharmaceutical company had waited until after the election to make the news public.
“The timing of this is pretty amazing,” he tweeted minutes after Pfizer’s statement was released. “Nothing nefarious about the timing of this at all right?”
He also shared a link to a story that claimed talk of a second wave was “misleading”, suggesting that he believed the threat of Covid-19 had been “exaggerated on purpose” – repeating one of his father’s favourite talking points that the media was overblowing the pandemic as part of a plot against him.
The president told supporters during his campaigning that he believed should Mr Biden be elected, the media and the Democratic Party would “suddenly” stop covering the virus.
Mr Trump had promised a vaccine before Nov 3, hoping it would boost his chances of re-election. However, scientists cautioned the timeline was unlikely given trials were ongoing. At the time, Mr Trump tweeted about the trials, writing: “STOCK MARKET UP BIG, VACCINE COMING SOON. REPORT 90% EFFECTIVE. SUCH GREAT NEWS!”
The stock market did skyrocket yesterday, breaking records on the news that Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine candidate was over 90 per cent effective in a trial. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shot up 5.5 per cent, hovering at 29,887.
Mike Pence, vice-president and head of the White House’s coronavirus taskforce, lauded the administration’s supposed role in creating the vaccine. “HUGE NEWS: Thanks to the public-private partnership forged by President Donald Trump, Pfizer announced its coronavirus vaccine trial is EFFECTIVE.”
However, Pfizer made clear it did not join the administration’s accelerated vaccine development programme, Operation Warp Speed, and received no money from the US government for its research. Warp Speed has promised $2 billion (£1.5 billion) to Pfizer to buy doses of any eventual vaccine, not for its development.