A few days ago all the living past presidents joined up with the Ad Council and did a public service announcement on getting vaccinated — except for Donald Trump. No, what he did was send out a tweet-sized press release telling everybody how grateful they should be when they get vaccinated because he made it possible.
Today the White House went on record saying that they would welcome Trump’s assistance in encouraging people to get the vaccine, but they’re not going to send him an invitation. The Hill:
“If former President Trump woke up tomorrow and wanted to be more vocal about the safety and efficacy of the campaign, of the vaccine, certainly we’d support that,” Psaki said at a briefing with reporters.
“Every other living former president… has participated in public campaigns,” she added. “They did not need an engraved invitation to do so. He may decide he should do that. If so, great. But there are a lot of different ways to engage to reach out to ensure that people of a range of political support and backing know the vaccine is safe and effective.” […]
The press secretary acknowledged last week that the Biden administration, which is stocked with Democratic officials, is unlikely to be the best messenger to convince conservatives to get the vaccine. She noted that demographic is more likely to trust their personal physician, community leaders or religious organizations, and the administration has done outreach there to try and reduce vaccine hesitancy.
The truth is this: there wouldn’t be any hesitancy but for MAGAs lying about the vaccine and QAnon making it a focal point of their latest conspiracy, and, most damning of all — Trump got his vaccine. He and Melania got it done secretly before they left the White House. So it’s crystal clear that what Trump says and what he does are two very different things. Is he going to take the high road and encourage others to do the right thing? I wouldn’t bet on it. As a matter of fact, I’m going to check in a few hours and see if the professional bookies are betting on it.
I don’t car about the endorsements – I just want it to be *available*. (I can find sites that will give it, but none of them *have* it. They don’t seem to allow signing up for appointments on a waiting list, either.)
I just got the newsletter in my email.
One Maryland official with the state or county health department tried to tell me that one could not even sign up for the waiting list until one was already eligible. That turned out to be incorrect.
Yay, got my first email from you guys in several weeks!
As far as tRump doing the right thing? Not holding my breath.
He’d want to charge them for being in the PSA.
Joe’s not holding his breath and neither are his people. They know Former Guy won’t without a generous bribe, monetary or legal, which ain’t happening.
Oh and FYI, Ursula, got the newsletter this morning.
Trump will never do any such thing. PSA, after all, stands for “Public Service Announcement” and Trump doesn’t believe in “public service”; if it were a “Serves Trump Announcement” (meaning “Trump gets paid”), he’d be there in a heartbeat.