Donald Trump has revealed for the first time that he received the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine before he left the White House.
“Well, I got the Pfizer and I would have been very happy with any of them,” the former president told Yahoo Finance Live.
Operation Warp Speed, established during the Trump administration, developed several vaccines from companies such as Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, and Pfizer. The programme received $18billion in funding but Pfizer managed to develop its vaccine without government money.
Mr Trump contracted Covid-19 in the autumn of 2020 as the presidential campaign was at its peak.
“I had it, recovered from it pretty well. I don’t think I had it like the press, like the media said, you know, they would try to make it difficult,” he said. “It’s not pleasant, but I had it.”
Former first lady Melania Trump was also vaccinated in January before leaving the White House but the Trumps didn’t reveal their vaccination status to the public until March.
Ms Trump also contracted Covid-19 during last year’s election campaign.
The US passed 700,000 Covid deaths on Friday, making it the deadliest pandemic in US history after surpassing the estimated 675,000 deaths caused by the Spanish Flu in 1918 and 1919.
“I thought it would have been gone long before now,” Mr Trump told Yahoo about Covid-19.
The Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have given the green light for booster shots of the Covid-19 vaccine for those over the age of 65.
Mr Trump said he would get a booster shot “if I felt that it was necessary and let’s see where this whole thing is going”.
Despite Operation Warp Speed developing the vaccines in record time during Mr Trump’s time in office, many of his supporters remain hesitant to get vaccinated, with some outright hostile to the idea.
At a rally in Cullman, Alabama some attendees booed when Mr Trump said that they should get vaccinated.
“I believe totally in your freedoms, I do, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do, but I recommend that you take the vaccines,” he told the crowd.
According to the CDC, unvaccinated people made up 95 per cent of all new Covid-19 cases and 92 per cent of all deaths from the disease between April and June.
In June and July, the unvaccinated made up 82 per cent of all new cases, 86 per cent of hospitalizations and 84 per cent of deaths.
President Joe Biden has issued new vaccine mandates for private businesses, saying last month that his patience with those still not jabbed is “wearing thin”.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is working out how to enforce the new rules governing vaccines.
Mr Trump told Yahoo that he was against mandates, and argued that Mr Biden had caused an uptick in anti-vaccine sentiments.
“When I was president, everybody wanted to get the vaccine,” Mr Trump claimed. “There was a rush to get it. You didn’t hear anything about mandates, you didn’t hear anything about people not wanting to take it.
“After I left, people don’t want to take it … and I think it’s because they don’t trust Biden.”
