“I think it is very important for former President Trump as well as the Vice President to actively encourage all fans to get vaccinated,” Admiral Brett Giroir told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “The Lead. when asked if Trump should urge his supporters to get the vaccine in light of a recent CNN poll showing 46% of Republicans have indicated they will not attempt to get the vaccine.
“It’s something the Trump administration developed in its time,” Giroir said. “And I think all of the above, including the former president speaking, would be very important.”
While the former president and the first lady received the Covid-19 vaccine at the White House in January, they did so quietly. Trump then encouraged his supporters to get vaccinated against the virus in a speech last month at the Conservative Political Action Conference – a notable change in his message, as he had long rejected the seriousness of the virus and avoided certain practices of health during his tenure. . Most recently, he was the only former president alive not to participate in an advertising campaign urging Americans to get the coronavirus vaccine when it comes their turn.
Former Presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and their respective former first ladies have appeared in the new campaign that has shown them they are getting their shots, a push aimed squarely at fighting skepticism about them. vis-à-vis vaccines. Obama, Bush and Clinton volunteered in December to put their Covid-19 vaccines on camera to promote public confidence in the safety of the vaccine, and President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris each have been vaccinated on live television in December.
A White House official told CNN in mid-December that Trump would not receive a coronavirus vaccine until recommended by the White House medical team. The official said at the time that Trump was still receiving the benefits of the monoclonal antibody cocktail given to him during his recovery from Covid-19 earlier in the fall, when he and the first lady tested positive for the virus.
Giroir, asked by Tapper on Monday why Trump was vaccinated behind closed doors and whether that had been a mistake, said he did not know the former president had been vaccinated “until I heard it like this was reported in the news, ”later added. : “But I think the point is now, and I think that’s where we’re at, that we all need to come together and urge every American.”
“The people who follow our former president are very attached to President Trump, and I think his leadership still matters a lot, and I think we need to do a better job of reaching out to underserved minority communities that have been disproportionately affected. “
CNN’s Jim Acosta, Dan Merica and Maeve Reston contributed to this report.
