WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump hailed as a “medical miracle” the mRNA vaccines developed to combat the deadly COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Now, his health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is effectively halting the vaccine technology’s advancement. Kennedy announced Tuesday that the federal government is canceling $500 million worth of mRNA research development contracts, putting an end to U.S.-backed hopes for the vaccine technology to prevent future pandemics, treat cancer or prevent flu infections.
It’s a sharp pivot from how Trump and top officials described the technology during his first term.
Here’s a look at what Trump and some of his closest advisers have said about mRNA vaccines that were credited with slowing the pandemic five years ago.
Robert Redfield, Trump’s director of the Centers for Disease Control
“A COVID-19 vaccine is the thing that will get Americans back to normal everyday life,” said Redfield, in a Sept. 16, 2020, statement.
Americans were still donning face masks as one of the few ways of protecting themselves from a virus that had killed nearly 200,000 in just over six months. Redfield promised that the new vaccines — developed for the first time using mRNA technology — would offer a return to normalcy.
Trump wanted to make sure Biden didn’t get credit
“Don’t let Joe Biden take credit for the vaccines … because the vaccines were me, and I pushed people harder than they’ve ever been pushed before .. The vaccines are — there are those that say it’s one of the greatest things. It’s a medical miracle.” Trump said on Nov. 26, 2020, during a news conference in the White House.
Weeks earlier, Trump had lost the election in a bitter race against Democrat Joe Biden. As the Republican grappled with leaving Washington and continued to plan for the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines, he reminded reporters that he oversaw the development of the new shots.
“They say it’s somewhat of a miracle and I think that’s true,” Trump said on Dec. 8, 2020, during a speech at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
The event celebrated “Operation Warp Speed,” the government-funded project that accelerated vaccine development with pharmaceutical companies. Trump was promoting the shots as the government prepared to offer them to frontline health workers.
Trump’s first-term health secretary, Alex Azar
“It’s clear that many Americans are learning these vaccines are safe and extraordinarily effective,” Azar said on Dec. 16, 2020, at a news conference.
The government was shipping out mRNA vaccines to states, preparing to distributed it to the masses. Azar noted that a vast majority of Americans — between 70% to 80%, according to polls — intended to get the new COVID-19 vaccine that would be available to the public in the coming months.
Gen. Gusave Perna, Trump’s chief operating officer for pandemic response
“It takes somewhere between five and 10 years to put a vaccine on the street. Look what we did. Now, that’s because of the great work of the scientists who had done the research on mRNA vaccines and others because of industry working on this, they just didn’t wake up one day and start working on it,” Perna said during a podcast interview that aired on May 9, 2023.
Reflecting in an interview about his time overseeing “Operation Warp Speed,” Perna credited the mRNA technology with the government’s ability to get shots in arms mere months after the pandemic started claiming lives in the U.S. in 2020.
Trump supporters boo his vaccine accomplishments
“Take credit because we saved tens of millions of lives. Take credit. Don’t let them take that away from you,” Trump said on Dec. 19, 2021 during a live interview with former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly.
Daily COVID-19 deaths had ticked down to 1,500 compared to 3,000 from a year earlier after Americans began receiving their first doses of the mRNA vaccines.
Trump revealed to O’Reilly and the audience that he had just gotten a COVID-19 booster.
The crowd booed.
