Trump, Biden Clash Over Coronavirus Vaccine
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden says he’d follow the advice of scientists about whether he’d get a coronavirus vaccine if one became available before November’s presidential election, as President Trump tore into the Democratic ticket over vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris’s recent comments on the issue.
“I would want to see what the scientists said,” the former vice president told reporters Monday of a vaccine after speaking with supporters during a stop in Lancaster, Pa.
Biden also emphasized he’d welcome an effective vaccine regardless of the consequences to his campaign.
“If I could get a vaccine tomorrow I’d do it,” he stressed. “If it cost me the election I’d do it. We need a vaccine and we need it now.”
Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during an event with local union members in the backyard of a home in Lancaster, Pa., Monday, Sept. 7, 2020. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
Biden – who’s heavily criticized Trump’s steering of the federal government’s response to the pandemic — also called for “full transparency on the vaccine.” And he once again argued that the president’s repeated misstatements and falsehoods regarding when a vaccine will become available are “undermining public confidence.”
Biden charged that when it comes to a vaccine, Trump’s “playing with politics. He said so many things that aren’t true.” And he cautioned that “if we do have a really good vaccine people are going to be reluctant to take it.”
TRUMP SAYS A BIDEN-HARRIS ADMINISTRATION WOULD ‘DESTROY’ COUNTRY, ECONOMY
Harris has taken heat after answering a question during a CNN interview that aired on Sunday about a possible vaccine by saying “I would not trust Donald Trump and it would have to be a credible source of information that talks about the efficacy and the reliability of whatever he’s talking about. I will not take his word for it.”
The president fired back Monday during a news conference.
Trump emphasized that Biden and Harris “should immediately apologize for the reckless anti-vaccine rhetoric that they’re talking right now, talking about endangering lives and it undermines science.”
Nearly 190,000 people in the U.S. have died from COVID-19 since the coronavirus swept the nation in February and March, with nearly 6.3 million total cases across the country.
