President Donald Trump on Monday appeared to raise fresh questions about the Covid-19 vaccines that were first developed on his watch, saying his top public health agency is being “ripped apart” by debate over the success of the shots.
While noting that he’s seen “great numbers and results” from some drug companies, Trump demanded they prove publicly that vaccines are effective in combating Covid and questioned whether unspecified data was being withheld from the public.
“I want them to show them NOW, to CDC and the public, and clear up this MESS, one way or the other!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “I hope OPERATION WARP SPEED was as ‘BRILLIANT’ as many say it was. If not, we all want to know about it, and why???”
The post represented Trump’s first public comments about the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention since the agency’s former director, Dr. Susan Monarez, was abruptly fired on Wednesday, less than a month into her tenure amid a dispute over vaccine policy.
And it was yet another example of Trump trying to walk a narrow line between touting what he has at times called his greatest accomplishment — the rapid development of the Covid vaccine in 2020 during his first term — and embracing the vaccine skepticism popular with his MAGA base and promoted by his top health official, US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“Many people think they are a miracle that saved Millions of lives. Others disagree! With CDC being ripped apart over this question, I want the answer, and I want it NOW,” Trump wrote of the vaccines.
Claiming that drug companies don’t share the “extraordinary” information he’s seen, the president said those companies instead “go off to the next ‘hunt’ and let everyone rip themselves apart, including Bobby Kennedy Jr. and CDC.”
CNN has reached out to Pfizer and Moderna about the Truth Social post. HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Drug companies regularly share information about effectiveness with the public, investors and media through news releases and calls and with scientists, regulatory and health agencies through presentations, publications and a presence at scientific, government and advisory meetings.
The CDC also regularly analyzes and communicates to physicians, public health officials and the public about vaccine effectiveness and safety. This information helps guide individual decisions about vaccination but also provider conversations and official recommendations.
The White House declined to say on Monday what data Trump is seeking from drug companies. But in a statement, spokesman Kush Desai said, “The only driving principle of health decision-making in this Administration is Gold Standard Science.”
“HHS, the FDA, and the CDC will continue to take an evidence-based approach to evaluate pharmaceutical treatments and Make America Healthy Again,” Desai said.
Trump’s comments came after the US Food and Drug Administration announced that it would narrow its approval for the next Covid vaccine, a move that prompted criticism from public health experts and widespread confusion over who will be eligible to receive the shot.
On Monday, commissioner Marty Makary defended the decision in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, arguing that drug makers haven’t justified the need for people who are under 65 or who don’t have certain health conditions to get the vaccine.
“No one knows how many shots a healthy person should get in his natural life,” Makary wrote. “The FDA’s new framework preserves vaccines for those who might most plausibly benefit, while generating evidence for most Americans, who are voting with their feet (or their upper arms) against an eternal annual booster campaign.”
During a Cabinet meeting last week, Trump called his Operation Warp Speed “one of the greatest achievements ever in politics.”
But he has remained fully behind Kennedy’s effort to revamp the government’s approach to vaccines, including signing off on the firing of Monarez after she refused to pledge to back recommendations made by a Kennedy-selected panel of outside advisers, some of whom have previously questioned the safety of widely accepted vaccines.
The dramatic ouster plunged the CDC into crisis, prompting the resignations of four other senior officials who have subsequently accused Kennedy and his allies of sidelining agency scientists in pursuit of policies they worry will restrict the availability certain standard immunizations.
