CNN’s Jim Acosta slammed Donald Trump on Sunday after the former president urged supporters to take the coronavirus vaccine, saying Trump had not been vociferous enough — with a guest adding: “He’d rather they die than alienate them.”
As Breitbart News reported Saturday night, Trump encouraged vaccination during a rally speech in Alabama.
Acosta had the following exchange with Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a medical professor at George Washington University:
Acosta: [Trump] seemed to, you know, indicate his support for people getting vaccinated, and then this happened. Let’s watch.
[Video clip]
Trump: And then we developed the vaccine — three vaccines, in three months, in nine months. And actually, I’ll tell you it was three days less than nine months, and it’s great. And you know what? I believe, totally, in your freedoms. I do. You’ve got to do what you have to do.
[Cheers]
Trump: But I recommend, take the vaccines! I did it, it’s good, take the vaccines. But, you got —
[Boos, and cheers]
Trump: No, that’s okay, that’s all right. You got your freedoms. But I happened to take the vaccine. If it doesn’t work, you’ll be the first to know, okay?
[Laughter]
Trump: I’ll call up Alabama, I’ll say, “Hey, you know what?” But it is working. But you do have your freedoms. You have to keep them, you have to maintain that. You have to maintain that. And you’ve got to get your kids back to school.
[Video clip ends]
Acosta: Not exactly a profile in courage there from the former president.
Reiner: It’s always the same with him. It’s always the same. Remember the famous, uh, you know, we’re recommending masks for everyone, but not for me? I just don’t see it when I greet, you know, kings and queens and dictators? This is the — and when you look at his response, when the crowd booed him. This is why he has never gone full throttle in support of vaccinating his base, because he knows they are reluctant. He doesn’t want to alienate them. And he’d rather they die than alienate them. Really, a shameful, pathetic, weak performance.
Acosta: Yeah, there was an opportunity there to show real leadership and he just failed that test. I mean, there’s just no other way around it.
Despite Reiner’s suggestion that Trump had a “not for me” attitude toward the vaccine, he had just specifically said that he had taken it. Acosta and Reiner gave President Trump no credit at all for pushing back against the skeptics in his audience.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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