Donald Trump was right. While the arrogant, self-congratulatory and patronizing Left busied themselves with mocking the president, Trump and his administration delivered the impossible. Long before the end of the year, the FDA issued an emergency use authorization for a COVID-19 vaccine, with immunizations beginning on December 14th.
Trump, his administration and Operation Warp Speed defied all odds — and all the “experts” — by overseeing the development and distribution of a vaccine in a period of just 10 months. In just 10 months, in the middle of a global pandemic, the United States has produced multiple highly effective vaccines.
Trump was right. The “experts” and our journalistic elites were wrong.
CNN
Speaking on CNN Newsroom in May, Dr. Peter Hotez — Professor of Pediatrics and Molecular Virology & Microbiology at Baylor College of Medicine and Director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development — helped debunk Trump’s statement that he “hopes to have a coronavirus vaccine by the end of the year,” saying “I don’t see a path by which any vaccine is licensed — whether it’s emergency use or otherwise — until the third quarter of 2021.”
President Trump said he hopes to have a coronavirus vaccine by the end of the year.
“I don't see a path by which any vaccine is licensed — whether it’s emergency use or otherwise — until the third quarter of 2021,” Dr. Peter Hotez says. https://t.co/8GKQJj9VJJ pic.twitter.com/NQaS6zVdRg
— CNN Newsroom (@CNNnewsroom) May 15, 2020
Earlier in March, CNN’s Chief White House Correspondent, Jim Acosta, mocked Trump, saying that “Dr. Fauci has publicly explained in front of Trump three times now that it will take a year or more to develop a Coronavirus vaccine.”
Since Monday, Dr. Fauci has publicly explained in front of Trump three times now that it will take a year or more to develop a Coronavirus vaccine. pic.twitter.com/3HFBccFm0k
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) March 3, 2020
Then there was the steady stream of CNN reports and “analyses” which either dismissed Trump’s claims or aimed to undermine them. In September, Jen Christensen wrote a piece titled “Past vaccine disasters show why rushing a coronavirus vaccine now would be ‘colossally stupid,’” citing criticisms which the Left now decry as anti-vaccine conspiracy theories.
In April, Robert Kuznia published a piece titled “The timetable for a coronavirus vaccine is 18 months. Experts say that’s risky.” The article cited Dr. Peter Hotez, and Dr. Paul Offit — the “co-inventer of the successful rotavirus vaccine” — who said “When Dr. Fauci said 12 to 18 months, I thought that was ridiculously optimistic. And I’m sure he did, too.”
Then, in late October, CNN published a “fact check,” saying that “Trump falsely says a Covid-19 vaccine is ready,” citing that “The FDA has not approved a vaccine for emergency use authorization,” happily ignoring the obvious subjective difference between a vaccine being “ready” and “approved.”
Then comes CNN’s pièce de résistance of wrongness, Daniel Dale, who holds the laughably meaningless title of CNN’s chief “fact checker.” Dale’s Twitter feed is one long demonstration of editorialization mixed with ineptitude and deceit. Everything a growing boy who wants to work at CNN needs.
Here are a few “highlights.”
No vaccine is "ready."
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) October 23, 2020
The president has gone from warm weather being a miracle virus-eradicator to hydroxychloroquine being a miracle cure to a pre-election vaccine miraculously fixing everything to, now, Regeneron’s antibody cocktail being a miracle cure.
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) October 7, 2020
So…there were at least three egregiously false claims in Trump's first answer:
– 2.2 million deaths "expected"
– We're rounding the turn, it's going away
– Vaccine "ready"— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) October 23, 2020
! Asked about CDC chief testifying today that a vaccine won’t likely be widely available in the US until the third quarter or late second quarter of 2021, Trump says, “No, I think he made a mistake when he said that. It’s just incorrect information.” “I believe he was confused.”
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) September 16, 2020
Trump, significantly more optimistic and unequivocal than the experts, declares that there will likely be a "therapeutic and/or vaccine solution long before the end of the year." He usually just says "end of the year," but Trumpflation.
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) July 4, 2020
Pence attacks Biden for…saying "no miracle" is coming on the coronavirus pandemic.
"What Joe doesn’t seem to understand is that America is a nation of miracles," Pence says, then says we're on track for a vaccine.
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 27, 2020
Trump on vaccines and therapeutics for COVID-19: "I think you're going to have a big surprise, a beautiful surprise, sooner than anybody would think."
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) June 24, 2020
NBC
The “fact check” prefix was also misused by NBC, who published an article titled “Fact check: Coronavirus vaccine could come this year, Trump says. Experts say he needs ‘miracle’ to be right.”
Written by Jane C. Timm, the article discussed Trump’s various comments regarding “an accelerated timeline,” including a Tweet which said that “Vaccine work is looking VERY promising,” written in May.
Good numbers coming out of States that are opening. America is getting its life back! Vaccine work is looking VERY promising, before end of year. Likewise, other solutions!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 14, 2020
The article then proceeded to cite various experts who said that “the development, testing and production of a vaccine for the public is still at least 12 to 18 months off, and that anything less would be a medical miracle.”
MSNBC
During the COVID-19 pandemic, MSNBC have seemingly made it their personal mission to defeat Donald Trump. Writing for “Maddowblog” in September, Steve Benen said “the president insisted that a vaccine could be ready in as little as three weeks, which was difficult to take seriously.” Earlier that same month, Benen wrote another article titled, “On a vaccine, Trump is over-promising and under-delivering (again).” This included the line “Trump believes he’s playing the role of ‘cheerleader’ by making false and unrealistic pandemic promises, such as saying there may be a vaccine next month.”
MSNBC also hosted multiple “expert guests” to promote their narrative. For example, Dr. Irwin Redlener joined in May to support the opinion that “Trump’s claim of a coronavirus vaccine by January is ‘preposterous.’”
New York Times
The New York Times published multiple pieces which dismissed Trump’s claims, including “Trump Seeks Push to Speed Vaccine, Despite Safety Concerns” in April, and “Top U.S. Health Officials Tiptoe Around Trump’s Vaccine Timeline” in September.
The Washington Post
Also boarding the “fact check” train, The Washington Post published a piece in March titled “Fact-checking Trump’s accelerated timeline for a coronavirus vaccine,” saying that Trump “seems to be overstating when a vaccine will be available to the public.”
The sources? Dr. Anthony Fauci and, you guessed it, Dr. Peter Hotez. The article ends with what we can only assume is a joke, reminding readers of The Washington Post of the importance of factual information.
“Trump appears to be expediting the vaccine development process, misrepresenting how fast a vaccine will be available to the public in fighting the novel coronavirus. Fauci has repeatedly corrected the president’s comments on the vaccine to put forward a more accurate timeline.
As the United States and the rest of the world prepare for the novel coronavirus to continue spreading, it’s important to share factual information about the virus and methods to combat it.”
CNBC
In late October, CNBC published a video titled “President Trump says Covid-19 vaccine will be coming by the end of the year, despite contrary evidence.”
Politico
In March, Politico reported that “Nearly every time President Donald Trump has talked about a coronavirus vaccine, he has gotten a real-time fact check from a health expert sitting nearby.”
BBC
In late March, the BBC listed Trump’s March 7th statement that “Very soon, we’re going to come up [with a vaccine],” in a piece titled “Coronavirus: Five Trump claims fact-checked,” brought to us by the BBC’s “Reality Check team.”
Twitter “Experts”
Last, and in many ways least, there are the hoards of Twitter commentators whose confidence is rivaled only by their inaccuracy. Aaron Rupar from Vox declared that “we’re not close” to a vaccine when he posted a video of Trump “promising that the coronavirus vaccine will be available ‘in a couple of weeks.’” The video was recorded on November 2nd.
Trump is now promising that the coronavirus vaccine will be available in "a couple of weeks," which is the surest indication yet that we're not close pic.twitter.com/mGftl9bddx
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 2, 2020
Noah Schachtman, Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Beast, described his opinion of the (now successful) “mission” of getting “a vaccine by the end of the year.”
NEW: Kushner, fresh off royally screwing up PPE acquisition, has been given a new mission by the president: to get a vaccine by the end of the year.
We're fucked, aren't we?https://t.co/PPLM0Mxia2
— Noah Shachtman (@NoahShachtman) May 6, 2020
What better way to end than this Tweet from ProPublica reporter and CNN analyst Jessica Huseman, who beautifully tempted fate in May.
Go ahead and flag this tweet for when we do not have that vaccine by the end of the year https://t.co/DX1bMrHMKF
— Jessica Huseman (@JessicaHuseman) May 14, 2020
Unfortunately, none of these figures or organizations will be punished for their utter ineptitude. Instead, they will continue to rewrite history, telling us in a few months time that they never doubted the ingenuity of American industry or the safety of vaccines, and it was actually the Biden administration that “saved us” after all.
Ian Haworth is host of The Ian Haworth Show and The Truth in 60 Seconds. Follow him on Twitter at @ighaworth.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.