Trump’s Vaccine-in-Weeks Pledge Risks Letdown or Public Mistrust

President Donald Trump has begun promising that a coronavirus vaccine will be approved within weeks -- a gambit to turn a pandemic cure into an October surprise for his struggling re-election campaign.

Trailing Democratic challenger Joe Biden in the polls, and with voters giving Trump’s response to the coronavirus outbreak poor marks, the president has championed his administration’s aggressive vaccine push as part of an effort to sway public opinion in his favor. Democrats have responded by raising doubts a shot approved under Trump can be trusted, making the coronavirus vaccine an election flashpoint.

“We will deliver a safe and effective vaccine before the end of the year -- and it could be very, very soon. It could be very, very soon,” Trump said at a campaign rally in Mosinee, Wisconsin, on Thursday.

But Trump’s promise of a vaccine in mere weeks, a timetable far more ambitious than that of any drug maker or public health official, risks embarrassment if the government doesn’t make his self-imposed deadline -- or public rejection of the shot if it does.

Rushing out a Covid-19 vaccine before the election, especially without ironclad evidence it’s safe and effective, may result in many Americans concluding its approval was tied to the political calendar and refusing the shot, Democrats and public health experts have said.

And if the Food and Drug Administration gives authorization for a shot that turns out to be ineffective, those who do take it may remain unknowingly vulnerable to infection.

“I trust vaccines, I trust scientists, but I don’t trust Donald Trump,” Biden said Wednesday after receiving a briefing on Covid-19. Trump responded by accusing Biden of pushing “anti-vaccine theories.”

If a vaccine isn’t approved before Election Day, Trump will be denied a political victory and blamed for over-promising and under-delivering -- an outcome he’s made clear is on his mind.

“They’re petrified the vaccine comes in before the election,” Trump said of his opponents in a Fox Sports Radio interview on Thursday.

Best Outcome

A vaccine approval before the election is still Trump’s unequivocal best political outcome, said Doug Heye, a former communications director for the Republican National Committee.

“It will be ‘records beat!’ and that is his absolute best option politically. And we know what he’ll say -- ‘Only I could have done this,’” Heye said in a phone interview.

“So much distrust has been sown around everything surrounding Covid, less people may take it,” he added. “But that’s further down the road.”

Democrats, though, have left themselves vulnerable to charges they are politicizing a vaccine by raising doubts about whether any shot approved under Trump can be trusted, Heye said. “If you’re a Democrat, you can’t say you trust Donald Trump to do this,” he said.

The back-and-forth risks eroding Americans’ trust in public health institutions and vaccines just as scientists and drug makers are poised to finally gain the upper hand on the virus and bring the pandemic to heel.

A group of nine pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies made a public pledge last week, promising to only seek approval for Covid-19 vaccines demonstrated to be safe and effective, in an effort to allay fears that development of the shot might be politically tainted.

Michael Leavitt, a former Health and Human Services secretary under President George W. Bush, said he believes the president wants a vaccine “as early as possible that is safe and effective.”

“Aside from the politics of the moment, every American should be aligned with that point of view,” Leavitt said. “Now, does he feel more strongly about it and for different motives than other people? Maybe, or probably -- but I think we all want to have a vaccine and we want it to be safe and we want it to be effective.”

In May, the president announced “Operation Warp Speed,” a project to accelerate vaccine development and deliver 300 million doses by year’s end. The government has selected eight vaccine candidates for the program, beginning manufacturing of the shots even while they remain in clinical trials with the expectation that one or more will work.

Top government health officials including Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, have said a vaccine may be available as soon as mid-2021 -- a timetable that would be remarkable itself, as vaccines typically take years to develop.

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