President Donald Trump in Portsmouth, England, June 5, 2019 to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the D-Day Invasion of June of 1944. Photo: zz/KGC-375/STAR MAX/IPx 2019 6/5/19 )
Former U.S. President Donald Trump was recently booed by his own supporters after telling them he received a vaccine booster shot – and he didn’t like it.
Trump was given the not-so-warm reception on Sunday in Dallas, Texas during a conversation with journalist and former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly as a part of a nationwide speaking tour.
“Both the president and I are vaxxed and did you get the booster?” O’Reilly asked. “Yes,” Trump replied.
“I got it too,” O’Reilly said to the crowd’s boos.
Trump tried to stop the crowd, waving his hand and saying, “Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t, no.” He then pointed to his right and said, “There’s a very tiny group over there.”
O’Reilly – who tweeted a clip of the interview from the account for his new endeavor, No Spin News – asked Trump the question after the former POTUS bragged about the “historic” progress he says his administration made in combatting the covid-19 pandemic.
“We did something that was historic. We saved tens of millions of lives worldwide. We, together, all of us. Not me, we,” Trump said, noting that three vaccines were produced in “less than nine months,” along with several other treatments.
Trump then added that if he hadn’t acted as he did, the coronavirus pandemic would have been as bad as the Spanish flu.
“Take credit for it. What we’ve done is historic. Don’t let them take away, don’t take it away from ourselves. You’re playing right into their hands when you sort of like, ‘Oh, the vaccine,’” Trump continued.
He doubled down on his anti-vaccine mandate stance. “If you don’t want to take it, you shouldn’t be forced to take it. No mandates, but take credit,” Trump said.
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O’Reilly said he had to console Trump in private after the crowd booed the ex-president.
“I told him that today, he called me. I said, ‘This is good for you, this is good that people see another side of you, not a political side, you told the truth, you believe in the vax, your administration did it, and you should take credit for it, because it did save, I don’t know, hundreds of thousands of lives,’” O’Reilly said.
Some people believe Trump’s speaking tour, and specifically, his vaccine endorsement is a strategic way to appeal to moderate Republicans who believe in the vaccine — part of an effort to launch his presidential campaign for 2024.
Twitter users weighed in, with some saying it’s too little, too late for Trump to admit he’s been vaccinated.
“Maybe if you spoke like this from the get go, we prolly won’t be in this mess. Unfortunately, the window of this statement making a tangible impact may have sailed,” @EthanHiguain wrote.
“When they “boo” him every time he’s mentioned he got the vax, it reveals how the “it’s about personal choice” line is bullsh*t,” @derekkerton chimed in. “It’s not about personal choice. It’s clearly not about health or science. It’s about about tribal allegiance and devout compliance.”
“Even these two get groans from the crowd when they try to get them to do the right thing,”
@JeffreyToddSch1 tweeted. “The toothpaste is out of the tube with these people and it’s gonna be tough to get it back in. They associate being unvaccinated with their identities.”
