Trump Exaggerates Progress, Credit on Future COVID-19 Vaccine

In a Labor Day press conference and at a rally in North Carolina the following day, President Donald Trump made several unsupported or inaccurate statements about a COVID-19 vaccine and distorted comments made by the Democratic ticket.

• Trump charged Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and running mate Kamala Harris with spreading “anti-vaccine conspiracy theories.” The candidates support properly approved vaccines, but have expressed concerns — shared by some in the scientific community — that Trump may not follow the standard protocols.
• The president claimed without support that “if this were the Obama administration, you wouldn’t have that vaccine for three years, and you probably wouldn’t have it all.”
• Trump inaccurately said that “we have 30,000 people, in just one vaccine right now, under test in very, very highly infected areas” and that “the numbers are looking unbelievably strong.” No trial has met its enrollment target of 30,000, and no one knows yet how the vaccines are performing.
• While insisting that he has never said there will definitely be a vaccine in October or November, Trump repeated the idea that it was possible, and previously said that such timing was likely. Health officials have said a vaccine is unlikely to be available that soon.

Biden/Harris Vaccine Statements

The president distorted what Biden and Harris have said about a COVID-19 vaccine, calling for them to apologize for their “anti-vaccine rhetoric.” The candidates have said that they are supportive of a safe and effective vaccine, but not one based on Trump’s word alone.

“[Biden and Harris] should immediately apologize for the reckless anti-vaccine rhetoric that they are talking right now, talking about endangering lives. And it undermines science,” Trump said in his Labor Day press conference.

“And what’s happening is, all of a sudden, you’ll have this incredible vaccine, and because of that fake rhetoric — it’s a politic rhetoric; that’s all it is. Just for politics,” he