President Donald Trump told tens of thousands of supporters in Cullman, Alabama, on Saturday night to take the coronavirus vaccine — though he also said it was important that they have the freedom to choose whether to do so.
Trump made his remarks at a rally in which he blasted President Joe Biden’s inept handling of the coronavirus, the Afghanistan withdrawal, the economy and other issues.
Then he touted the vaccines — enduring, and defusing, some boos:
And then we developed the vaccine — three vaccines, in three months, in nine months. And actually, I’ll tell you it was three days less than nine months, and it’s great. And you know what? I believe, totally, in your freedoms. I do. You’ve got to do what you have to do.
[Cheers]
But I recommend, take the vaccines! I did it, it’s good, take the vaccines. But, you got —
[Boos, and cheers]
No, that’s okay, that’s all right. You got your freedoms. But I happened to take the vaccine. If it doesn’t work, you’ll be the first to know, okay?
[Laughter]
I’ll call up Alabama, I’ll say, “Hey, you know what?” But it is working. But you do have your freedoms. You have to keep them, you have to maintain that. You have to maintain that. And you’ve got to get your kids back to school.
Trump has been criticized for not advocating vaccination more vociferously. However, the Biden administration has never asked for Trump for help, and has never given him personal credit for his role in the development of the vaccines last year.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.