Former President Donald Trump recommended people receive the COVID-19 vaccine when they are eligible, even if they don’t want to get one.
“I would recommend it, and I would recommend it to a lot of people that don’t want to get it, and a lot of those people voted for me, frankly,” Trump told Maria Bartiromo in a phone interview Tuesday evening on Fox News.
Though the former president recommended the vaccine to everyone, he added: “But, you know, again, we have our freedoms, and we have to live by that, and I agree with that also.”
Trump was facing some pressure to speak out in support of the vaccines.
Adm. Brett Giroir, who was Trump’s coronavirus testing czar, urged the former president to address COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among Republicans.
“We all have to get together and urge every American,” Giroir said on CNN. “The people who follow the former president are very committed to President Trump, and I think his leadership still matters a great deal.”
Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, also called on Trump to encourage his voters to take the vaccine.
According to a recent NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, 49% of Republican men, 47% of Trump supporters, and 41% of Republicans overall said they wouldn’t take a coronavirus vaccine if one was available to them.
Trump received the vaccine along with former first lady Melania Trump at the White House in January, but that fact was only recently revealed to the public.
Trump told supporters to get vaccinated at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, but he was not involved in an ad campaign with fellow former presidents urging people to get inoculated.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
