For the past several weeks, Former VP and Current Democrat Nominee Joe Biden (along with his running mate Kamala Harris) has been questioning the safety of any vaccine to the Wuhan Virus that the Trump Administration would be able to produce either before or shortly after the election.  The concern stems from their belief that the Trump Administration would push an unsafe vaccine to market to ease concerns about COVID-19 and help soften Trump’s disapproval rating on the subject.

Numerous scientific leaders within the Trump administration have dismissed this claim stating that they would not allow for the release of an unsafe vaccine, but that has not stopped Biden and Harris from repeating their anti-vax conspiracy theories.

Today, during a press conference at the White House, President Donald Trump took those theories on and criticized Biden for his anti-vax rhetoric.

“Since January, America’s brilliant doctors and scientists have been working around the clock.  These are the best medical minds in the world, by far, and the vaccines are going through the gold-standard of clinical trials and uh, a very heavy emphasis placed on safety.  Three vaccines are already in the final stage.   Joe Biden’s anti-vaccine theories are putting a lot of lives at risk and they are only doing it for political reasons, it’s very foolish. It’s part of their war to try and discredit the vaccine now that they know that we essentially have it, we’ll be announcing it fairly soon…”

President Trump says "Joe Biden's anti-vaccine theories are putting a lot of lives at risk." pic.twitter.com/Mb5ybudHH8

— The Hill (@thehill) September 18, 2020

Currently, Biden has a sizable lead in polling when it comes to Americans’ perceptions of the handling of the coronavirus response.  As this author has previously stated, Biden has the advantage of not being in the position of having to have been responsible for any COVID-19 response, and the fact he has the hindsight advantage.  Let it be noted that Biden has no public statements in the February-March timeline that indicate he would have handled the COVID-19 outbreak any differently, or any better for that matter, than the current President.  Biden also opposed Trump’s travel ban, calling it xenophobic at the time.  Biden has also mischaracterized the President’s response and even stated that Trump never mentioned COVID-19 during the State of the Union, another lie that was refuted by the tapes of the evening.

Trump also stated that once a vaccine is available, he believes that enough will be produced for every American who wants it, no later than April 2021.