Heavy hitters
Gov’t brass get shots — but Don holds off
Most of the U.S. government’s top leaders have either gotten vaccinated for the coronavirus or locked in plans to do so in the coming days — but President Trump is holding off on his shot indefinitely.
Vice President Mike Pence, Second Lady Karen Pence, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell all received their inoculations Friday and showcased their injections over social media and television with the expressed purpose of boosting public confidence in the vaccine.
“Building confidence in the vaccine is what brings us here this morning,” Pence said before he and his wife received their shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in front of cameras at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House.
Pelosi and McConnell offered similar messages after their vaccinations. “With confidence in science and at the direction of the Office of the Attending Physician, I received the COVID-19 vaccine,” tweeted Pelosi, who’s second in the line of presidential succession. “As the vaccine is being distributed, we must all continue mask-wearing, social distancing and other science-based steps to save lives and crush the virus.”
President-elect Joe Biden and incoming First Lady Jill Biden will receive their shots on Monday, a spokeswoman for his transition team said, with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, to follow the next week.
But Trump has for some reason yet to make vaccination arrangements. First Lady Melania Trump’s plans also aren’t known.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany did not return a request for comment Friday on why Trump isn’t scheduling his inoculation even as Pence and the other top elected officials are lining up for shots.
Earlier this week, McEnany said Trump wouldn’t get the vaccine until his team of White House doctors recommended it. She also said he’s still benefiting from an experimental drug he was administered while hospitalized in October for COVID-19.
But the fact that Pence got his vaccination ahead of Trump may come as a surprise.
Pence is 61 and has no known underlying health conditions that could put him at risk of suffering severe COVID-19 symptoms. Trump, on the other hand, considered to be in several is coronavirus risk categories because he’s 74 and clinically obese.
The outgoing president’s apparent reluctance to get the shot comes as some of his most ardent supporters are making unfounded claims about the dangers of the vaccine.
Far-right Fox News host Tucker Carlson, a favorite of Trump’s, said on his well-watched show Thursday night that Americans should be “nervous” about the vaccine.
“Even if you’re strongly supportive of vaccines, and we are, even if you recognize how many millions of lives have been saved over the past 50 years by vaccines, and we do, it all seems a bit much. It feels false, because it is. It’s too slick,” Carlson said.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine that Pence and the other government officials received Friday is the first coronavirus shot approved for emergency use in the U.S.
It was developed without funding from the Trump administration’s signature “Operation Warp Speed” program.
A second vaccine produced by Moderna with assistance from Operation Warp Speed earned approval from the Food and Drug Administration later Friday, as the U.S. embarks on a major inoculation campaign to end the pandemic that has killed more than 311,000 Americans.