Trump fixates on the promise of a vaccine — real or not — as key to reelection bid
President Trump is so fixated on finding a vaccine for the novel coronavirus that in meetings about the U.S. pandemic response, little else captures his attention, according to administration officials.
Trump has pressed health officials to speed up the vaccine timeline and urged them to deliver one by the end of the year. He has peppered them with questions about the development status and mass-distribution plans. And, in recent days, he has told some advisers and aides that a vaccine may arrive by Nov. 1, which just happens to be two days before the presidential election.
Trump’s desire to deliver a vaccine — or at least convince the public that one is very near — by the time voters decide whether to elect him to a second term is in part a campaign gambit to improve his standing with an electorate that overwhelmingly disapproves of his management of the pandemic.
“We remain on track to deliver a vaccine before the end of the year and maybe even before November 1st,” Trump told reporters at a Friday news conference. “We think we can probably have it some time during the month of October.”
Trump has repeatedly offered similar promises, adding to the pressure scientists and officials at the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health feel to develop, test and authorize a coronavirus vaccine on what some of the president’s aides refer to as “Trump time.”
Several Trump aides said one key to the president winning reelection is having a vaccine or demonstrating rapid progress toward one, as well as a robust economic turnaround, over the next two months.
Democratic strategists, too, said a vaccine announcement could play in Trump’s favor, but they cautioned that it is unlikely to significantly change the contours of the race.
“If they pull a vaccine out of their a– it will be the October surprise of October surprises,” said Cornell Belcher, a Democratic pollster. “I think you’ll see some of the angst lifting off of the American electorate. But I think it will be difficult connecting the dots to Donald Trump given where public perception of him is on covid, and given that this is a guy who a couple months ago said people should try to get sunshine and disinfectants inside of themselves.”
There is intense disagreement over whether the FDA should use its emergency authority to clear a vaccine before it is formally approved, which some in the scientific community say could be dangerous. [Continue reading…]