Trump urges supporters to get COVID-19 vaccine
GOP leader vows ‘scorched earth’ if procedure removed
WASHINGTON – Former President Donald Trump said he would urge his supporters to get a COVID-19 vaccine, but he acknowledged that some of them may refuse in the name of “freedom.”
“I would recommend it, and I would recommend it to a lot of people that don’t want to get it,” Trump told Fox News in a 20-minute telephone interview Tuesday.
Trump noted “a lot of those people” who don’t want a vaccine “voted for me, frankly. But ... again, we have our freedoms, and we have to live by that, and I agree with that also.”
In early January, before leaving the White House, Trump and then-first lady Melania Trump received a vaccine but did not disclose that fact publicly.
“It’s a great vaccine, it’s a safe vaccine, and it’s something that works,” Trump told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo.
Surveys show that some people don’t want to get a vaccine because they fear side effects or other medical problems, though repeated trials have showed the vaccines are safe. Polls show Republican men and Trump supporters are among the top groups who resist the vaccine.
Trump was the only former president not to participate in a public service ad asking Americans to take the shots.
On Monday, President Joe Biden said he wouldn’t wait on help from Trump in getting people vaccinated.
“I discussed it with my team,” he said, “and they say the thing that has more impact than anything Trump would say to the MAGA folks is what the local doctor, what the local preacher, what the local people in the community say.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, a top medical expert for both Trump and Biden, had urged the former president to ask supporters to get vaccinated, saying it would make a huge difference.
“He’s such a strongly popular person. I cannot imagine that if he comes out that they would not get vaccinated,” Fauci said on “Fox News Sunday.” “It would be very helpful to the effort for that to happen.”
Trump – who contracted coronavirus in early October, in the heat of the presidential campaign – also expressed support for vaccinations in his speech Feb. 28 at the Conservative Political Action Conference. “So, everybody, go get your shot,” he told the crowd of supporters.
In the Fox News interview, Trump also took credit for production of the vaccines and criticized Biden for not giving him what he believes is proper credit. He also attacked Biden over immigration and the economy.
While again protesting the election and denouncing his critics, Trump said it’s too early to say whether he will run again in 2024.
Trump also criticized Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, over her recent criticism of the British royal family, and he scoffed at the news reports that the former Meghan Markle may be thinking of running for president.
“If that happened, I think I’d have an even stronger feeling toward running,” Trump said, later adding: “I am not a fan of Meghan.”
WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden is calling for changes to the filibuster to require lawmakers to speak on the floor of the Senate to hold up a bill, while the chamber’s Republican leader warns of “scorched-earth” tactics if Democrats use their new control to bring an end to the legislative roadblock entirely.
Biden, in an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, restated his opposition to eliminating the filibuster but suggested he supported changes to make it more costly and time-consuming for those trying to block bills. Currently, any lawmaker can signal an intent to filibuster, setting a 60-vote threshold to advance most legislation, without ever speaking on the floor.
“I don’t think that you have to eliminate the filibuster. You have to do it what it used to be when I first got to the Senate back in the old days,” Biden said. “You had to stand up and command the floor. You had to keep talking.”
“You’ve got to work for the filibuster,” he added. “It’s getting to the point where, you know, democracy is having a hard time functioning.”
His comments on Tuesday came hours after Senate Republican leader Mitch Mcconnell warned of a “scorched earth” landscape if Democrats end the filibuster in hopes of muscling Biden’s agenda past GOP opposition.
Mcconnell forecast a Senate that would all but cease to function, implying that Republicans would grind business to a halt by refusing to give consent for routine operations – from the start time for sessions, to the reading of long legislative texts, to quorum call votes.
“Let me say this very clearly for all 99 of my colleagues: Nobody serving in this chamber can even begin – can even begin to imagine – what a completely scorched-earth Senate would look like,” Mcconnell said Tuesday in a Senate speech.
Mcconnell said the partisan gridlock of the Trump and Obama eras would look like “child’s play” compared with what’s to come.
The debate over the filibuster reignited as the Biden administration is taking a victory lap over the just-passed $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, the big COVID-19 relief package that was approved by Congress without a single Republican vote. Republicans acknowledged privately they are struggling to pry attention away from the bill, which appears to be popular among Americans benefiting from $1,400 cash payments, vaccine distribution and other aid, as the GOP focuses on future battles.
With the Senate evenly divided, 5050, the rest of Biden’s priorities face a tougher climb in Congress. While the Democratic-controlled House is able to swiftly approve a long list of potentially popular bills, the rules of the Senate are more cumbersome.
Biden acknowledged that he likely won’t get GOP votes on his proposal to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans, but said he believed Democratic votes alone could send it into law.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer brushed off Mcconnell’s remarks as a “diversion.” He said he hopes to work with Republicans on the upcoming bills but that all options for filibuster changes are on the table.
Senate Democrats are talking privately about changing the decades-old rules for the filibuster, which allows a single senator to block a bill by objecting. In earlier eras, senators would seize the floor, speaking for hours about their objections. They also used it to stall civil rights legislation in the middle of the 20th century.
Supporters of the process say it protects the rights of the party not in power, but detractors argue it is being used to block popular bills.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-ill., said Tuesday that nearly 65 years after South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond’s record-setting 24-hour-plus filibuster over the 1957 Civil Rights Act, “the filibuster is still making a mockery of American democracy.”
It takes 51 votes to change the Senate rules and do away with the filibuster, and Democrats do not appear to have the support from within their ranks to do so.
The Senate will be put to the test in the weeks ahead. As senators start considering the House-passed bills, Democrats will be assessing Republican willingness to participate in the legislative process by amending the bills toward eventual passage.
If Republicans simply block the bills, Democrats are expected to lean in more forcefully to try to change the rules.
Some Democrats want to require senators who engage in filibusters to be forced to hold the floor, as Jimmy Stewart did in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” These days, senators can simply signal their filibuster, which Durbin derided as “Mr. Smith Phones It In.”
Mcconnell warned Democrats not to take the next step, unveiling the actions he could take in retribution.
“This is an institution that requires unanimous consent to turn the lights on before noon, to proceed with a garden-variety floor speech, to dispense with the reading of a lengthy legislative text, to schedule committee business, to move even noncontroversial nominees at anything besides a snail’s pace,” he said.