Biden Press Secretary: Trump Admin Doesn’t Deserve Credit for COVID Vaccine Rollout
“I don’t think anyone deserves credit when half a million people in the country have died of this pandemic,” Jen Psaki said when asked if the Trump administration deserved some credit for the vaccine rollout.
Once Joe Biden took office, his administration wasted no time getting the MSM to amplify the claim that the Trump administration did not give them a Wuhan coronavirus vaccine rollout plan. As we reported in January, CNN ran a big story the day after Biden’s inauguration, which quoted anonymous Biden officials saying they were having to “start from scratch” on the rollout.
It wasn’t just anonymous officials making a claim. Biden’s chief of staff, Ron Klain, told Meet the Press that “the process to distribute the vaccine… did not really exist when we came into the White House.” Biden himself called the vaccine rollout a “dismal failure thus far” and initially set a goal of 100 million vaccinations in 100 days (he later upped it to 150 million vaccinations in 100 days).
The problem with the allegation that the Biden team had to “start from scratch,” which Vice President Kamala Harris also claimed, is that it simply wasn’t true. Former Operation Warp Speed staffers, some of them from Trump’s HHS department, were not the only ones stepping forward to refute it with details they said the Biden team left out. Biden’s chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci pushed back on the CNN report as well.
Not long after Harris made her comments, however, Fauci reversed course and stated he agreed with her more or less. He apparently got the memo that everyone had to be working off the same “start from scratch” page.
During Thursday’s White House press briefing, Biden press secretary Jen Psaki was asked if the Trump administration deserved any credit for “laying the groundwork” for the vaccine rollout. Psaki’s answer was to invoke the U.S. death toll for the pandemic as the rationale for why they didn’t:
Psaki: I don’t think anyone deserves credit when half a million people in the country have died of this pandemic. So, what our focus is on, and what the President’s focus is on when he came into office just over a month ago, was ensuring that we had enough vaccines. We have — we are going to have them now. We had enough vaccinators, and we had enough vaccine locations to get this pandemic under control.
There’s no question, and all data points to the fact, that there were not enough of any of those things when he took office. We are open-eyed about the challenge we continue to live under, and that’s why he has been focused every single day and doing everything possible to get the pandemic under control.
But those were — there were shortages in all those areas, which were preventing us from moving forward on getting the pandemic under control.
Watch:
This answer was in addition to the one she gave earlier this week in response to an observation from a New York Times reporter regarding how the conversations about the Merck/Johnson & Johnson vaccine production deal was announced Tuesday actually started under the Trump administration as well.
After stating she was talking about the deal in terms of “when it was finalized,” Psaki told the reporter that “…there’s a difference between conversations and it moving forward.”
The various arguments this administration has put forth about so-called vaccine shortages, supposedly not having enough vaccinators, and being given no rollout plan are an insult to the American people’s intelligence. They saw for themselves in mid-December when the Pfizer vaccine’s first dosage was given to a healthcare worker in Queens.
In addition to that is the inconvenient fact that before Inauguration Day, the Trump administration was already very close to hitting the daily numbers Biden needed to reach his goal:
But per vaccination data from Bloomberg, the U.S. has now hit 1 million vaccinations for four days in a row, with a rolling seven-day average of 1.2 million. And on Monday, Biden himself said he hoped to raise the threshold to 1.5 million soon.
So much for those alleged “shortages,” right?
Without Operation Warp Speed and Trump using his megaphone to put public pressure daily on the people he relied on to get the job done, the likelihood of a vaccine becoming available in record time would have been slim to none. Had Trump bowed to his critics in the media and on the left about how vaccines took much more time than he was willing to give them to be created, tested, approved, and ready for distribution, the Biden administration really would have inherited a big vaccine problem.
But they didn’t. Though there were no doubt hiccups in the transition from one administration to the next concerning the vaccine plan, the Biden administration started with daily vaccination numbers that came close to meeting their goal. The Trump administration’s efforts enabled Biden’s team already to have a good running start on vaccination numbers.
In addition to that, the Biden administration worked off of existing contracts that Trump’s administration negotiated with companies like Pfizer and Moderna to increase production numbers.
And that Merck/J&J deal that was announced earlier this week was already being brokered while Trump was still president.
It’s hard to determine which has been more infuriating: Biden, Harris, and other Democrats deliberately undermining the vaccine last year by telling people it could be unsafe if “rushed through because of politics,” Democrats conveniently flip-flopping on that position after the election, or the Biden administration delivering slaps to the faces of Operation Warp Speed members who worked their fannies off to help make what was said to be impossible happen before the end of the year.
Biden can try and cover himself in glory all he wants on how the vaccine rollout has gone so far, but the facts are what they are. No amount of posturing and “circling back” on the issue from Psaki or any other spinmeister in this administration is going to change that.
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
So the people who cleared the red tape to reduce all of the delays deserve no credit. Yeah, that’s about dumb enough to be a democrat.
We all know that the only reason that a vaccine is available now, is that Trump made it happen.
Just like he did the ventilators. They tried to bait Trump by asking, “Can you you gurantee that everyone who needs a ventilator will have one?” And Trump ordered the factories to start producing ventilators and they produced so many they didn’t have room to store them all.
In Democrat-land, government programs aren’t considered ready until all the red tape is installed.
Nothing that happens – operationally – in the first 30 days of a new administration is due to the new administration’s efforts. In the first 30 days, they are still bringing on new people and checking to see where the bathrooms are.
Anyone who has dealt with a change in administration knows this. It takes 15 miles to turn around an aircraft carrier because it its momentum. It takes 30 days to get a new administration operational.
Claiming sole credit for anything significant that happens in the first 30 days (unless it is a nuclear launch) is just stupid. The media knows this. They just have TDS.
Joe Biden can’t take credit for anything that has happened since the election, good or bad. There will only be one thing that he will be remembered for: Dementia. The time period between Trump and Harris will be known as the Dr Jill Fiasco. Perhaps some footnotes in medical journals mentioning the effects of the experimental Alzheimer’s medicine that was tried.
Jill is Susan Rice’s beard. She’s the real puppeteer here.
Is this your first time?
This is straight out of the Democrat playbook.
The ones in charge know the facts, and they lie anyway.
The press slavishly repeats the lie.
And the Democrat sheep eat it up.
Every Democrat ‘knows’ that Trump did nothing and only Saint Biden’s election saved them from the Covid Demon.
And how many have died on Sleepy Joe’s watch, Jen? By your logic, Biden would deserve, at best, only partial credit.
It’s not called I’ll circle back on that it’s called as TRump named it WARP SPEED.
Press secretaries under the likes of clinton, obama and now biden are pure propagandists, in league with the democrat media rats in the audience.
It’s a bad joke.
Baghdad Bob now identifies as a woman.
This Psaki person established her credentials as a genuine WITCH way back in the dreadful Nobama years.
Ignorant WITCH, if I recall correctly.
And after 40+ days in office, Biden hasn’t much about vaccinating people. Tha Dems could have passed a bill allocating money for vaccination centers in his first days in office with bipartisan support. Still taking about it because it got put in a pork-filled 1.9 T bill.
Hey, he made his goal of 300 people.
Now it’s time for another well-deserved nap.
This is what we get for allowing the Democrats to steal an election. A Demented President, a C*cksucker for a Vice President, and a Stupid C#nt for a mouthpiece.
We know she’s lying and she knows she’s lying and everybody with a functioning brain knows she’s lying, but the Dems will vote in lockstep for Joe’s lying team anyway.
“The rules are simple: they lie to us, we know they’re lying, they know we know they’re lying, but they keep lying to us, and we keep pretending to believe them.”
That’s how it worked in the bad old USSR too.
Let’s give credit to Jay Inslee, Newsome and Cuomo.
So Emperor Xide did it in 45 days, amazing work. No wonder he hasn’t been seen in public in, oh, the last 44 days
Hey Jen, let me circle around with that dump truck full of horse manure you ordered. I understand you’re running out of your supply in your press conferences, and needed to order a reload.
Ms. Psaki—aka “Sack Of” is pathetic prevaricating posturing excuse for a press eecretary. I wouldn’t believe this bimbo if she told me the sun will come up tomorrow.
I wouldn’t believe this bimbo if she told me the sun will come up tomorrow.
Given who’s in the White House, it might not.
It just never ceases to amaze me the extent that Trump Derangement Syndrome still exists in the democrat’s heads given that Trump is no longer president. The democrats simply cannot give him any credit for anything and are actively attempting to erase anything Trump did during his administration from history.
If Trump hadn’t kicked vaccine development into high gear we’d still be waiting for vaccine(s) to be developed.
It doesn’t amaze me. Obama kept blaming everything on Bush well into his second term.
Psaki has an affinity for circles, they are an accurate representation of her IQ.
Dems now routinely spout and spread non-sequiturs.
Which implies they assume their supporters are too dumb, stupid, and ignorant to notice. Which means they are assuming their leftwing media allies, public school teachers, and neo-Marxist social studies professors in the universities have done their job — dumbing down the population.
Classless, dishonest and evasive. She is worthless.
And Gin Sack-ee deserves to be heard because…..?????????? When she is there to analyze anything done by her boss(and she needs to name that person cause we all know it ain’t Joe) maybe she will have standing. To date, ZERO!!
If she was smart, she would spend a little time analyzing some Kayleigh McEneny pressers. She might learn the right way to inform the public. Oh right, I forgot, she’s a Democrat Socialist and they don’t know enough to inform anyone about anything!
She’ll circle back to you with that propaganda.
“Circle back” means I need to consult with the folks in the back room on how to put a spin on that.
That it was “Narrative Compliant.”
Without Operation Warp Speed and Trump using his megaphone to put public pressure daily on the people he relied on to get the job done, the likelihood of a vaccine becoming available in record time would have been slim to none. Had Trump bowed to his critics in the media and on the left about how vaccines took much more time than he was willing to give them to be created, tested, approved, and ready for distribution, the Biden administration really would have inherited a big vaccine problem.”
That is why I call it the “TRUMP VACCINE!”
And don’t forget all the “I don’t trust any vaccine that President Trump helped create” talk; Harris was right at the front of the line for her shot.
Lying, sleazy, mean-spirited, inept Democrats.
Let’s not omit mention of the utterly greasy and vile Pfizer execs’ intentional concealment of positive vaccine data, until after the election, quite transparently undertaken to help old fool, Xi-den. It’s documented that Xi-den’s team met with a slew of pharmaceutical companies, prior to the election. I don’t doubt that they worked out some sort of quid pro quo arrangement, in exchange for the companies keeping a lid on the release of positive clinical data, which would obviously have helped Trump’s re-election prospects.
Somewhat OT, but
Isn’t everyone who enters a Federal building supposed to be wearing a mask the entire time they are in it? So why isn’t Psaki? Is she celebrating, like Biden was earlier this year?
This gal has to have taken every course in Political Science but did an internship for a PHD in Political Stupidity. Every time she steps to the mic, she may have a better handle on public speaking but the content is just as ignorant if not worse than what she twist around to bring a brighter light on Bide’s comments.
Press secretaries are supposed to present the truth in the most favorable light to favor the administration they are working for.
Democrats apparently find this rule incomprehensible as it contains the concept of truth.
Did Psaki ever say anything true that did not involuntarily slip out? It seems doubtful.
The vile envious lies these people tell show the core of their character. And the chthonic chaos Psaki reveals is a reflection of the asterisk she’s speaking for.
A friend of mine was a reporter/editor for a major daily paper in Kali. In many ways it was a dream job. Women in the city where he worked and lived rarely met straight guys, so he had a lot of girlfriends. Every once in a while he got to do cool things like go to bull riding school or take tactical handgun or shotgun training courses at firearms academies.
When he’d make arrangements the media relations guys would assume that he had never touched a gun, was afraid of them, and was going to write a hit piece. They’d ask him questions and he’d blow their minds when he’d say, “I don’t need a loaner. I’ll just bring my Sig 226.” There was always a moment of stunned silence, then the media relations guy would always say, “You’re the first reporter we ever talked to who owned his own gun.”
When he got more senior he became the automobile editor. Whenever I’d visit I never knew what car he’d be reviewing. He’d have something like a Corvette Z06 or a AMG MB for a week and we’d cruise around in that.
But he got as disgusted with the MFM because the leftist mono-culture meant there was a lot of pressure to lie to fit their party narrative on the ten percent of reporters who weren’t on board with the cultural Marxism.
He quit and got a job as head of PR for an adjoining county’s government where he didn’t have to lie. He has to shine the best possible light for his employers on whatever the MFM was outraged that day. But as you said, he sticks to the truth.
If the left had an official sport it’d be projection. When I was in the Navy an embedded reporter told me to my face that if he thought the Navy was lying to him then he’d publish a pack of lies to force the Navy to correct the record. The public affairs officers I knew would, like my friend, never outright lie. They might be tightlipped with the information but it would be truthful as far as they knew (and they’d never fall for these idiot reporters bait). The typical MFM reporter always thinks that the Navy is lying to them, because they’re always lying. For the same reason they always thought my friend was lying to them. Which was fine with my friend as he had quit that cabal of leftists whoring for the leftist cause and knew exactly who they were.
Jen Psaki is the kind of PR flack who makes sane people think everyone in PR is a bigger liar than a used car salesman.
Just like the MFM conveying her lies.
This. Thank you for that perfect illustration.
(Please help me out, MFM?)
It’s my mod to the usual MSM. Main Stream Media.
The second M still means Media. The first M is for Mother.
Do you really need me to explain further?
No need to go into further detail 😉
F Jen
I guess Emperor Xiden has done it all, 1.1 million vaccinated in Pa in 49days., but has 4,577 Covid deaths as well in Pa alone.
Dear Little Jen Sack of You Know What. She puts her pants on one leg at a time like all the other folks–then gets on her broom to ride to the press room. There she opens and spreads the sack of you know what on the assembled reporters, all the time telling them that it’s vanilla ice cream. But even a 28 year old numb nuts reporter can taste “bull dust” when he’s covered with it. He won’t admit it though–if it came frrom a Dimocrat it’s vanilla ice cream.
Plagiarism writ large