I would first have to verify that these quotes are not taken out of context. But for the sake of time let's assume he said all of this and the context is a non-issue.
Trusted Misinformation from Advisers: Those around him may have provided misleading information or withheld key details, leading him to genuinely believe the vaccines are safe and effective.
Limited Awareness of Risks: He might lack access to comprehensive data about potential dangers or adverse effects, leaving him unaware of any potential harm.
Military-Developed Versions Compromised: The military could have initially produced safe vaccine batches, but bad actors (so-called "black hats") may have introduced contaminated batches to undermine the rollout.
Strategic Exposure Through Support: He could have supported the vaccines publicly, expecting that his endorsement would prompt the political opposition to scrutinize or even criticize the vaccines, thus exposing their risks.
Chess Move in a Complex Game: Given a complex political landscape, he may have felt that supporting the vaccines was the only viable option, even if it wasn't ideal, as part of a larger strategic play.
Public Health Pressure and Optics: The intense pressure from health agencies and media may have made it politically challenging to oppose vaccines, so he endorsed them to maintain a balanced public image.
Appealing to Key Demographics: He may have calculated that supporting the vaccine would help him appeal to or reassure certain groups, even if he privately held reservations about its safety.
An Intentional, Controversial Strategy: He might see vaccines as ultimately beneficial but anticipates controversy, believing that supporting them will provoke necessary public discussion.
Altruistic Misstep: He may genuinely believe in the vaccine’s benefits and see it as a vital tool to protect lives, even if that belief turns out to be misplaced.
Villainous Intent: Lastly, he could knowingly promote something harmful with malicious intent, intending to cause harm for unknown reasons.
If he said no to vaccines the media would have ripped him apart. Everthing would have been over. He did support choice and zero mandates. Has said zero mandates anywhere the second he is back in office. RFK Jr is one of the top vaccine and child health experts. And he’s called anti science. Potus had zero choice. People were scared and the propaganda was thick.
That was when he said, I’m about to make the most important decision of my life. Millions will die, but if he doesn’t do the right thing billions will die. Here we are. He is not father of the vaccine, NIH is father of the vaccine.
This is the correct answer. Everyone had a choice. Trump’s was the most difficult. The end will not be for everyone but this man is playing chess to literally save the World
Trump was right about HCQ, ivermectin, light therapy, MMS smells like bleach but is not, vitamin D, vitamin c. Sunlight. Fauci literally told people not to go outside for sunlight and exercise. He’s the first doctor in history to say that.
He was the father of “Operation Warp Speed”, NOT “Jabocide”. He told them to “give Hydroxychloroquine a chance”…they had other plans. He allowed the “smartest guys in the room” (3 letter agencies), to cut their own throat and they did. Look at Cuomo, there will be plenty more. NCSWIC!
In any human war ( but especially when the war is psychological / irregular/ asymmetric where victory hinges on gaining the support of the population), there is deception required to accomplish victory. In this particular psychological war for the population, one significant objective required for victory is the Overton Window.
In our covid specific psychological battlefield, Trump was required to concede the vaccine support so that he would reside inside the populations original position on the Overton window scale. From inside, Trump is able to engaged in discourse regarding the vaccine and other issues that slowly encourages or pushes the Overton window into the direction of the target outcome. Had Trump instead taken the final position on vaccines ( ie these things are ineffective and causing harm to the population), he would have been well outside and beyond the farthest acceptable position that the population would listen and consider based on the initial position of the Overton Window at the beginning of covid. This is why Trump has lieutenants in his operation whom are tasked with speaking in a range of positions on the continuum of the direction he wants the Overton window to shift towards. The positions range from complete truth to various gradients of moving closer to the compete truth. As Trump pushes from inside to help shift the populations current Overton Window position in the target direction, these other voices near the outside edge of that window are shifted inside the window as the population perspective changes. Only when the shift happens does the outlier voice become recognized as having legitimate points to consider. Along that continuum as the shift progresses over time, the population becomes more familiar with the direction the window is shifting toward. Eventually the range has shifted enough that Trump can safely alter his official discussed position and in that way, he stays firmly inside the Overton window of ideas which means he won't be dismissed or rejected immediately without consideration because he is perceived as learning from the journey just as the population is learning ( ie one of us (population) vs outsider).
Dear Republicans: Your favorite president wants you to get vaccinated
At various points in 2021, former president Donald Trump has encouraged his supporters to get vaccinated against the coronavirus. (Video: JM Rieger/The Washington Post, Photo: Cassidy Araiza/The Washington Post)
I’d like to introduce you to a Republican who checks many of the boxes when it comes to those who need the most convincing to get vaccinated against the coronavirus.
Engaged in conspiracy theories about the vaccine? Check. Might have believed he had enough natural immunity from a prior infection and didn’t need it? Check. Has demonstrated that he is quite worried about what his vaccine-skeptic friends might think of him? Check and check.
This Republican would like to tell those same vaccine-skeptic friends that they should get vaccinated — and has now done so repeatedly. His name is Donald Trump.
As many Republicans continue to resist the vaccine, and as ambitious and outspoken Republicans increasingly flirt with vaccine skeptics in their base — as best exemplified by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) — the leader of the Republican Party has stuck to his guns in promoting the vaccine. He has done so even when jeered at or booed for it, as has now repeatedly happened. And the totality of his commentary on the matter is worth emphasizing as we continue to confront intractable vaccine skepticism.
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Trump disclosed in an interview Sunday that he has gotten his booster. He did so despite claiming in a Fox Business Network interview in August that the boosters might be a Big Pharma money-grab. He also did so despite saying in September that he probably wouldn’t get a booster. If Trump turned the corner on that, maybe those who think he Made America Great Again might take notice?
To the extent that Trump’s allies continue to resist the vaccine and baselessly claim it’s dangerous or not worth it, they are expressly opposing their beloved former president. To the extent that they claim that the vaccine isn’t saving countless lives, they are disputing what Trump himself has said over and over again. To the extent that even the vaccinated ones are resisting boosters, they are now not following his lead. And according to Trump’s latest comments, they’re not just disregarding him; they’re also playing into their opponents’ hands.
To be clear, Trump is not saying anything that health officials haven’t said about the vaccine for a long time. Nor did he take up this cause when it arguably might have mattered most; he declined to disclose his own vaccination as president, and only pushed the vaccines more than a month later. But when he has weighed in on the vaccine since then, he’s delivered a message that it’s a wonder nobody has put in a public service announcement and run on repeat on Fox News and other conservative outlets whose audiences have been fed a steady diet of unsubstantiated vaccine skepticism.
Here’s a recap:
February: 'Everybody, go get your shot”
Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Trump said, “We took care of a lot of people — including, I guess, on December 21st, we took care of Joe Biden, because he got his shot, he got his vaccine. … It shows you how unpainful that vaccine shot is.”
Trump added: “So everybody, go get your shot.”
March: ‘I would recommend it to’ my vaccine-skeptic allies
In a Fox News interview, Trump said, “I would recommend it to a lot of people that don’t want to get it and a lot of those people voted for me, frankly.”
He also repudiated claims that the vaccines aren’t safe: “It’s a great vaccine, it’s a safe vaccine, and it’s something that works.”
Mid-April: Defended safety of Johnson & Johnson vaccine
After the federal government paused its authorization of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, in light of rare blood-clotting issue which vaccine skeptics seized upon, Trump excoriated the decision and pointed to the minimal adverse effects.
“The federal pause on the J&J shot makes no sense,” Trump said, adding: “Just six people out of the nearly 7 million who’ve gotten the Johnson & Johnson vaccine reported blood clots.”
Trump even suggested that the move would feed the kind of anti-vaccine skepticism that was on the rise in his base. (Allies such as Tucker Carlson have often pointed to unverified reports in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS.)
“Indeed, this moronic move is a gift to the anti-vax movement,” Trump said. “The science bureaucrats are fueling that deranged pseudoscience.”
Late April: ‘The vaccine is a great thing, and people should take advantage of it’
Trump told the New York Post: “I’m all in favor of the vaccine. It’s one of the great achievements, a true miracle, and not only for the United States. We’re saving tens of millions of lives throughout the world. We’re saving entire countries.”
Trump added that, “The vaccine is a great thing, and people should take advantage of it,” while adding that it shouldn’t be mandated.
July: ‘I recommend you take it’
At a rally in Arizona, Trump said, “I recommend you take it, but I also believe in your freedoms 100 percent.”
Mid-August: ‘Once you get the vaccine, you get better’
In the same interview in which Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo ultimately goaded Trump into initially questioning the boosters, Trump began by offering one of his most forceful pro-vaccine statements.
“Now one thing: When you have the vaccine, people that do [get infected] — and it’s a very small number relatively, but people that do get it — get better much quicker,” Trump said. “And it’s very important to know. They don’t get nearly as sick, and they get better. [Sen.] Lindsey Graham is an example. He said, if I didn’t have this vaccine, I would have died.”
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“So once you get the vaccine, you get better,” Trump added.
Late August: ‘Take the vaccines. … It is working.’
At a rally in Alabama shortly after the Bartiromo interview, Trump again broadly promoted vaccines — even playing off those who booed him for it.
“I recommend take the vaccines,” he said. “It’s good. I did it. Take the vaccines.”
As some in the crowd jeered, Trump took care to qualify his remarks by noting that this is about personal choice. But then he re-upped the message.
“You got — no, that’s okay. That’s all right. You got your freedoms. But I happened to take the vaccine,” Trump said, before defusing the situation with a joke: “If it doesn’t work, you’ll be the first to know.”
He added: “But it is working.”
September: ‘The vaccines do work. … It’s tremendously successful.'
“The vaccines do work,” Trump said on a conservative talk-radio show. “And they are effective. So here’s my thing: I think I saved millions and millions of lives around the world.”
He added: “And now countries are using our vaccines, and it’s tremendous. It’s tremendously successful.”
December: Don’t let the libs win when you promote vaccine skepticism
At an event with former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly in Dallas, Trump disclosed that he got a booster shot after all. He did so despite his August comments about a Big Pharma money-grab and despite having told the Wall Street Journal in September that he probably wouldn’t get it. (“I feel like I’m in good shape from that standpoint; I probably won’t. … I’m not against it, but it’s probably not for me.”)
And despite again being jeered for his vaccine promotion, Trump said that it was a small portion of the audience. He also said — as he had before — that feeding vaccine skepticism was counterproductive.
“What we’ve done is historic,” he said. “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.’ ”
We shall see if his supporters heed his advice — or keep playing into the left’s hands.
Trump can flip on this after the election.
Not now...
I would first have to verify that these quotes are not taken out of context. But for the sake of time let's assume he said all of this and the context is a non-issue.
Trusted Misinformation from Advisers: Those around him may have provided misleading information or withheld key details, leading him to genuinely believe the vaccines are safe and effective.
Limited Awareness of Risks: He might lack access to comprehensive data about potential dangers or adverse effects, leaving him unaware of any potential harm.
Military-Developed Versions Compromised: The military could have initially produced safe vaccine batches, but bad actors (so-called "black hats") may have introduced contaminated batches to undermine the rollout.
Strategic Exposure Through Support: He could have supported the vaccines publicly, expecting that his endorsement would prompt the political opposition to scrutinize or even criticize the vaccines, thus exposing their risks.
Chess Move in a Complex Game: Given a complex political landscape, he may have felt that supporting the vaccines was the only viable option, even if it wasn't ideal, as part of a larger strategic play.
Public Health Pressure and Optics: The intense pressure from health agencies and media may have made it politically challenging to oppose vaccines, so he endorsed them to maintain a balanced public image.
Appealing to Key Demographics: He may have calculated that supporting the vaccine would help him appeal to or reassure certain groups, even if he privately held reservations about its safety.
An Intentional, Controversial Strategy: He might see vaccines as ultimately beneficial but anticipates controversy, believing that supporting them will provoke necessary public discussion.
Altruistic Misstep: He may genuinely believe in the vaccine’s benefits and see it as a vital tool to protect lives, even if that belief turns out to be misplaced.
Villainous Intent: Lastly, he could knowingly promote something harmful with malicious intent, intending to cause harm for unknown reasons.
The last one is unlikely. Have fun.
That was 3 years ago, with reasoning at the very beginning of a global "pandemic".
Today is 3 years later. Can we focus on recent happenings? Anything less than a year old?
If he said no to vaccines the media would have ripped him apart. Everthing would have been over. He did support choice and zero mandates. Has said zero mandates anywhere the second he is back in office. RFK Jr is one of the top vaccine and child health experts. And he’s called anti science. Potus had zero choice. People were scared and the propaganda was thick.
That was when he said, I’m about to make the most important decision of my life. Millions will die, but if he doesn’t do the right thing billions will die. Here we are. He is not father of the vaccine, NIH is father of the vaccine.
This is the correct answer. Everyone had a choice. Trump’s was the most difficult. The end will not be for everyone but this man is playing chess to literally save the World
Trump was right about HCQ, ivermectin, light therapy, MMS smells like bleach but is not, vitamin D, vitamin c. Sunlight. Fauci literally told people not to go outside for sunlight and exercise. He’s the first doctor in history to say that.
OP this issue has been discussed at length here. Do a search for older posts and you will see why this post is concern trolling.
He was the father of “Operation Warp Speed”, NOT “Jabocide”. He told them to “give Hydroxychloroquine a chance”…they had other plans. He allowed the “smartest guys in the room” (3 letter agencies), to cut their own throat and they did. Look at Cuomo, there will be plenty more. NCSWIC!
In any human war ( but especially when the war is psychological / irregular/ asymmetric where victory hinges on gaining the support of the population), there is deception required to accomplish victory. In this particular psychological war for the population, one significant objective required for victory is the Overton Window.
In our covid specific psychological battlefield, Trump was required to concede the vaccine support so that he would reside inside the populations original position on the Overton window scale. From inside, Trump is able to engaged in discourse regarding the vaccine and other issues that slowly encourages or pushes the Overton window into the direction of the target outcome. Had Trump instead taken the final position on vaccines ( ie these things are ineffective and causing harm to the population), he would have been well outside and beyond the farthest acceptable position that the population would listen and consider based on the initial position of the Overton Window at the beginning of covid. This is why Trump has lieutenants in his operation whom are tasked with speaking in a range of positions on the continuum of the direction he wants the Overton window to shift towards. The positions range from complete truth to various gradients of moving closer to the compete truth. As Trump pushes from inside to help shift the populations current Overton Window position in the target direction, these other voices near the outside edge of that window are shifted inside the window as the population perspective changes. Only when the shift happens does the outlier voice become recognized as having legitimate points to consider. Along that continuum as the shift progresses over time, the population becomes more familiar with the direction the window is shifting toward. Eventually the range has shifted enough that Trump can safely alter his official discussed position and in that way, he stays firmly inside the Overton window of ideas which means he won't be dismissed or rejected immediately without consideration because he is perceived as learning from the journey just as the population is learning ( ie one of us (population) vs outsider).
If he still believes this good Lord.
Here was WaPo in 2021 praising Trump for his jab stance:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/12/21/dear-republicans-trump-wants-you-get-vaccinated-thats-not-fake-news/
A Paywall article from 2021 is not helping us find the source of the statements posted. Any chance you could copy and paste it including the date.
From the WaPo article
December 21, 2021 at 12:02 p.m. EST
Dear Republicans: Your favorite president wants you to get vaccinated
At various points in 2021, former president Donald Trump has encouraged his supporters to get vaccinated against the coronavirus. (Video: JM Rieger/The Washington Post, Photo: Cassidy Araiza/The Washington Post)
I’d like to introduce you to a Republican who checks many of the boxes when it comes to those who need the most convincing to get vaccinated against the coronavirus. Engaged in conspiracy theories about the vaccine? Check. Might have believed he had enough natural immunity from a prior infection and didn’t need it? Check. Has demonstrated that he is quite worried about what his vaccine-skeptic friends might think of him? Check and check.
This Republican would like to tell those same vaccine-skeptic friends that they should get vaccinated — and has now done so repeatedly. His name is Donald Trump. As many Republicans continue to resist the vaccine, and as ambitious and outspoken Republicans increasingly flirt with vaccine skeptics in their base — as best exemplified by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) — the leader of the Republican Party has stuck to his guns in promoting the vaccine. He has done so even when jeered at or booed for it, as has now repeatedly happened. And the totality of his commentary on the matter is worth emphasizing as we continue to confront intractable vaccine skepticism. Story continues below advertisement Trump disclosed in an interview Sunday that he has gotten his booster. He did so despite claiming in a Fox Business Network interview in August that the boosters might be a Big Pharma money-grab. He also did so despite saying in September that he probably wouldn’t get a booster. If Trump turned the corner on that, maybe those who think he Made America Great Again might take notice? To the extent that Trump’s allies continue to resist the vaccine and baselessly claim it’s dangerous or not worth it, they are expressly opposing their beloved former president. To the extent that they claim that the vaccine isn’t saving countless lives, they are disputing what Trump himself has said over and over again. To the extent that even the vaccinated ones are resisting boosters, they are now not following his lead. And according to Trump’s latest comments, they’re not just disregarding him; they’re also playing into their opponents’ hands. To be clear, Trump is not saying anything that health officials haven’t said about the vaccine for a long time. Nor did he take up this cause when it arguably might have mattered most; he declined to disclose his own vaccination as president, and only pushed the vaccines more than a month later. But when he has weighed in on the vaccine since then, he’s delivered a message that it’s a wonder nobody has put in a public service announcement and run on repeat on Fox News and other conservative outlets whose audiences have been fed a steady diet of unsubstantiated vaccine skepticism. Here’s a recap:
February: 'Everybody, go get your shot” Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Trump said, “We took care of a lot of people — including, I guess, on December 21st, we took care of Joe Biden, because he got his shot, he got his vaccine. … It shows you how unpainful that vaccine shot is.” Trump added: “So everybody, go get your shot.”
March: ‘I would recommend it to’ my vaccine-skeptic allies In a Fox News interview, Trump said, “I would recommend it to a lot of people that don’t want to get it and a lot of those people voted for me, frankly.” He also repudiated claims that the vaccines aren’t safe: “It’s a great vaccine, it’s a safe vaccine, and it’s something that works.”
Mid-April: Defended safety of Johnson & Johnson vaccine After the federal government paused its authorization of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, in light of rare blood-clotting issue which vaccine skeptics seized upon, Trump excoriated the decision and pointed to the minimal adverse effects. “The federal pause on the J&J shot makes no sense,” Trump said, adding: “Just six people out of the nearly 7 million who’ve gotten the Johnson & Johnson vaccine reported blood clots.” Trump even suggested that the move would feed the kind of anti-vaccine skepticism that was on the rise in his base. (Allies such as Tucker Carlson have often pointed to unverified reports in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS.) “Indeed, this moronic move is a gift to the anti-vax movement,” Trump said. “The science bureaucrats are fueling that deranged pseudoscience.”
Late April: ‘The vaccine is a great thing, and people should take advantage of it’ Trump told the New York Post: “I’m all in favor of the vaccine. It’s one of the great achievements, a true miracle, and not only for the United States. We’re saving tens of millions of lives throughout the world. We’re saving entire countries.” Trump added that, “The vaccine is a great thing, and people should take advantage of it,” while adding that it shouldn’t be mandated.
July: ‘I recommend you take it’ At a rally in Arizona, Trump said, “I recommend you take it, but I also believe in your freedoms 100 percent.”
Mid-August: ‘Once you get the vaccine, you get better’ In the same interview in which Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo ultimately goaded Trump into initially questioning the boosters, Trump began by offering one of his most forceful pro-vaccine statements. “Now one thing: When you have the vaccine, people that do [get infected] — and it’s a very small number relatively, but people that do get it — get better much quicker,” Trump said. “And it’s very important to know. They don’t get nearly as sick, and they get better. [Sen.] Lindsey Graham is an example. He said, if I didn’t have this vaccine, I would have died.” Story continues below advertisement “So once you get the vaccine, you get better,” Trump added.
Late August: ‘Take the vaccines. … It is working.’ At a rally in Alabama shortly after the Bartiromo interview, Trump again broadly promoted vaccines — even playing off those who booed him for it. “I recommend take the vaccines,” he said. “It’s good. I did it. Take the vaccines.” As some in the crowd jeered, Trump took care to qualify his remarks by noting that this is about personal choice. But then he re-upped the message. “You got — no, that’s okay. That’s all right. You got your freedoms. But I happened to take the vaccine,” Trump said, before defusing the situation with a joke: “If it doesn’t work, you’ll be the first to know.” He added: “But it is working.”
September: ‘The vaccines do work. … It’s tremendously successful.' “The vaccines do work,” Trump said on a conservative talk-radio show. “And they are effective. So here’s my thing: I think I saved millions and millions of lives around the world.” He added: “And now countries are using our vaccines, and it’s tremendous. It’s tremendously successful.”
December: Don’t let the libs win when you promote vaccine skepticism At an event with former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly in Dallas, Trump disclosed that he got a booster shot after all. He did so despite his August comments about a Big Pharma money-grab and despite having told the Wall Street Journal in September that he probably wouldn’t get it. (“I feel like I’m in good shape from that standpoint; I probably won’t. … I’m not against it, but it’s probably not for me.”)
And despite again being jeered for his vaccine promotion, Trump said that it was a small portion of the audience. He also said — as he had before — that feeding vaccine skepticism was counterproductive. “What we’ve done is historic,” he said. “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.’ ” We shall see if his supporters heed his advice — or keep playing into the left’s hands.