Just when so many Americans are afraid to get the vaccine or desperate to find one where they live, former President Donald Trump jumps into the fray to stir the pot with a Pfizer conspiracy theory.
Trump berated health officials Tuesday for pausing the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine amid reports of blood clots.
“The results of this vaccine have been extraordinary but now (its) reputation will be permanently challenged,” Trump said in an emailed statement according to the New York Daily News.
Urging the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to end the halt of the vaccine, Trump says with confidence that Americans who’ve received the J&J jab will be “up in arms.”
“Do your testing, clean up the record, and get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine back online quickly,” Trump said.
Trump also takes the opportunity to throw in a conspiracy about the Pfizer vaccine, saying: "Perhaps all of this was done for politics or perhaps it’s the FDA’s love for Pfizer ... Maybe because their friends at Pfizer have suggested it. They’ll do things like this to make themselves look important.”
The one-term president doubled down on his theory, alleging that federal health officials were somehow secreting working with Pfizer to delay positive results from their COVID vaccine trials until two days after President Joe Biden won the election -- suggesting that the FDA wanted Trump to lose “they didn’t like me very much because I pushed them extremely hard.”
