Former President Donald Trump revealed over the weekend that he had received a COVID-19 booster shot and chastised supporters who booed over the revelation.
Mr. Trump said the negative reaction came from a small group of audience members at a Dallas event with former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly.
“Oh, don’t, don’t,” Mr. Trump said, waving a hand at the crowd.
Mr. Trump said people who deride the shots are diminishing his administration’s effort to get three vaccines developed and tested in record time during the first year of the pandemic.
“We saved tens of millions worldwide by creating the vaccine,” Mr. Trump said at the Sunday stop of a tour he’s doing with Mr. O’Reilly. “We should take credit for it, and you play right into their hands.”
Drugmakers and federal scientists say extra doses of the vaccines are needed to protect against the omicron variant.
“Both the president and I are vaxxed, and, did you get the booster?” Mr. O’Reilly said.
“Yes,” Mr. Trump said.
“I got it, too,” Mr. O’Reilly said.
Mr. Trump got his initial vaccine series in January at the White House, though he didn’t do it publicly. It was unclear when he got the booster.
The confirmation is notable because pollsters have found that Republicans are less likely to report being vaccinated for COVID-19 than Democrats.
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin made news over the weekend by telling a conservative crowd in Arizona: “It’ll be over my dead body that I get a [COVID-19] shot.”
Mr. Trump told the Dallas crowd that he does not think the shots should be mandated, a clear break with the Biden administration, which has cheered employer mandates and issued requirements of its own on segments of the workforce, though many of these rules are being held up in court.
The current White House hasn’t given much credit to Mr. Trump for his work on the vaccines but, at the same time, has said it is surprised by the amount of GOP resistance to the vaccines given the amount of work done under the previous administration.
Ian Sams, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, welcome Mr. Trump’s weekend revelation.
“Be like President Trump, and get your booster shot,” he tweeted.
For more information, visit The Washington Times COVID-19 resource page.
