Former President Donald Trump delivered the COVID-19 vaccines — and was booed for telling his supporters he was double vaccinated and boosted — but he says lawmakers' lack of candor of getting the booster is "gutless."
"I've had the booster," Trump told OAN in an interview recorded Monday. "I watched a couple of politicians be interviewed and one of the questions was, 'did you get the booster?' because they've had the vaccine.
Trump mocked them for hemming and hawing.
"In other words, the answer is yes, but they don't want to say it, because they're gutless. You've got to say it. Whether you've had it or not, say it."
Trump said the vaccines "have saved 10s of millions of people throughout the world" and provided anecdotal evidence that the booster is safe.
"I have had absolutely no side effects," Trump continued. "I've had it like other people have had it — nothing special."
Trump's Operation Warp Speed was developed in mere months, designed to get a vaccination to the world to help save lives in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic that punctuated the last year of his presidency's first term.
The former president considers the operation a success, as healthy, vaccinated people are not having serious complications if they contract COVID-19.
"If they get it, they're not going to hospitals, for the most part, and dying," Trump said. "Before it was a horror, and now they're not [dying]."
Trump did not mention which politicians lacked candor on the booster, but The Washington Post did a report earlier this month headlined: "Some GOP leaders are scornful or silent about booster shots seen as key to fighting omicron."
The story quotes Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis telling Fox News, "so, I've done whatever I did, the normal shot." DeSantis is considered a potential top GOP 2024 presidential candidate.
But Florida has been strong on it, according to that same report.
The Post story did not mention Democrats' position on booster shots, but Christina Pushaw, the press secretary for DeSantis, told the news outlet that the state's booster rate among the vaccinated — 31% — "is higher than the District of Columbia's rate of 26.5% and close to New York's rate of 32%."
In Texas, GOP Gov. Greg Abbott has been silent on the booster, according to The Texas Tribune
A spokesperson for Abbott did not respond when asked whether the governor has received a booster. As of Monday, 14.4% of Texans had gotten boosters.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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