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Trump Encourages His Supporters To Get COVID-19 Vaccine, Within Limits of 'Freedoms'

Syringes of the Moderna vaccine are seen at a COVID-19 vaccination site at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas on Monday.
Mandel Ngan
/
AFP via Getty Images
Syringes of the Moderna vaccine are seen at a COVID-19 vaccination site at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas on Monday.

Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday recommended that all eligible Americans get the coronavirus vaccine when their opportunity comes, though he added a caveat that he also respects people's decisions not to get one.

Trump had faced growing calls for him to encourage his supporters — especially Republican men, who have voiced cynicism about the vaccine — to get vaccinated.

"I would recommend it, and I would recommend it to a lot of people that don't want to get it. And a lot of those people voted for me, frankly. But, you know, again, we have our freedoms and we have to live by that, and I agree with that also," Trump said during an interview with Fox News on Tuesday. "But it's a great vaccine, it's a safe vaccine, and it's something that works."

Republicans and supporters of the former president are the least likely to seek a vaccine for the coronavirus, an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist survey revealed last week.

Almost half of Republican men, 47% of Trump supporters and 41% of Republicans overall said they would not get a vaccine if one is made available to them. Only 30% of adults overall say they would not get one.

Trump's endorsement of the vaccine comes as many of his supporters have embraced baseless and dangerous conspiracies about the coronavirus, some of which the president encouraged.

Trump and former first lady, Melania, who both dealt with a bout of COVID-19 last year, received the vaccine in private sometime before leaving office, but had not publicly encouraged people to get it.

President Biden and several other politicians, including former Vice President Mike Pence, were publicly vaccinated to help promote the safety and effectiveness of the shot.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Alana Wise joined WAMU in September 2018 as the 2018-2020 Audion Reporting Fellow for Guns & America. Selected as one of 10 recipients nationwide of the Audion Reporting Fellowship, Alana works in the WAMU newsroom as part of a national reporting project and is spending two years focusing on the impact of guns in the Washington region.
Alana Wise
Alana Wise is a politics reporter on the Washington desk at NPR.