It was bad enough that he failed to cross the Rubicon and that he abandoned his supporters who marched to the capital at his urging, but it is his continued support for the vaccine fraud that has transformed the erstwhile God-Emperor into a squirming proto-sandworm:
During an appearance at a Bill O’Reilly ‘History Tour’ event in Dallas, the former president claimed success in expediting the creation of Covid vaccines through Operation Warp Speed, a program he created that provided billions of dollars in government funding and cut the drug’s approval time down from the usual six or seven years to one.
“We did something that was historic,” Trump boasted before the crowd. “We got a vaccine done.” When he later admitted he had not only been vaccinated twice, but had got a booster, he was booed by some of his erstwhile supporters.
While Trump tried to play down the booing as representing only a “very tiny number,” O’Reilly reported that the former president called him after the event, and needed consoling.
“I said ‘This is good for you, this is good that people see another side of you, not a political side,’” the former Fox News anchor said. “‘You told the truth, you believe in the vax, your administration did it, and you should take credit for it…’”
Then Trump gave a softball interview to Candace Owens, which he used to double down on his support for vaccines in what appeared to be an attempt to persuade his supporters to go along with him on the issue and credit him for the success of the immunization campaign. READ MORE: We Americans are now in a cold civil war
“The vaccine is one of the greatest achievements of mankind… I came up with a vaccine – with three vaccines – all are very, very good. The vaccines work,” he pleaded. “The ones that get very sick and go to the hospital are the ones that don’t take their vaccine… If you take the vaccine you’re protected. Look, the results of the vaccine are very good, and if you do get [Covid], it’s a very minor form. People aren’t dying when they take the vaccine.”
Trump concluded by claiming, “I’m a big fan of the vaccine. I’m not going to give that up. That’s a great achievement… Millions and millions of lives I’ve saved.”
No, it’s not good for him. And he’s not going to give it up. Which is why we’ve finally had to give him up. He was a great President, genuinely the greatest U.S. President since Andrew Jackson, but his management skills, nepotism, and negotiator’s instincts failed him in the end.
That doesn’t mean he can’t win election in 2024, although the failure to successfully address the 2020 fraud may do so. For all we know, his continued support of the vaccine regime may be the price he is paying in order to return to the presidency. But if he does, it is unlikely that his second term will be as successful as his first.