It’s getting to be sort of comical. Jen Psaki, the press secretary to the president of the United States, gets any mention of Joe Biden’s predecessor stuck in her throat. She’s twisting herself into a pretzel to avoid mentioning Trump.
I’m no mental health professional but isn’t that kind of paranoid?
Jen Psaki needs an intervention. Or, at least, a high colonic. Perhaps the entire administration can do with a good cleansing. Otherwise, how do you explain not only their continued refusal to credit Trump with anything having to do with the vaccine but also their taking credit for vaccine accomplishments that are clearly Trump’s?
Psaki on Friday pushed back when a reporter asked whether Trump deserved any acknowledgement for his vaccine efforts.
She said the progress on vaccines was a “Herculean incredible effort by science and by medical experts.”
“And certainly, we’ve applauded that in the past, and we’re happy to applaud that again,” she added.
That wasn’t the question, Jen.
On Friday, a reporter pressed Psaki on Biden’s speech, asking: “Why not just say, with credit to the previous administration and the former president for putting us in this position, we are glad that we have been able to move it forward?”
Psaki dismissed the question as an “excellent recommendation as a speechwriter” and said the purpose of Biden’s speech was to provide the American people with an “update on what his administration has been doing.”
“Americans are looking for facts. They’re looking for details. They’re looking for specifics,” Psaki said. “And I don’t think they’re worried too much about applause from six months ago when the president has already delivered that publicly.”
Actually, no he hasn’t. Neither Joe Biden nor anyone in his administration has ever publicly credited the Trump administration with bringing a vaccine to combat a deadly disease to market in record time. In a statement earlier, Trump seemed a little miffed about that.
“I hope everyone remembers when they’re getting the COVID-19 (often referred to as the China Virus) Vaccine, that if I wasn’t President, you wouldn’t be getting that beautiful ‘shot’ for 5 years, at best, and probably wouldn’t be getting it at all,” Trump said in a statement earlier this week. “I hope everyone remembers!”
That’s a gross exaggeration on Trump’s part (what’s new?) but it probably would have taken at least twice as long with Biden in charge. Trump ordered private industry to take the lead, not the government, as Biden almost certainly would have done. The result was a race by several pharmaceuticals giants with billions of dollars as the prize. That race meant that the COVID vaccine was developed in astonishing time, much faster than any politician or public health official ever predicted.
An honest media would point that out. They might also point out the amazing accomplishment of Operation Warp Speed to set up an incredibly complicated distribution network for the vaccine in a matter of months.
All of the heavy lifting on vaccine distribution was done by the Trump administration before Biden was even elected. Refusing to acknowledge that fact shows just how small a man Joe Biden is.
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