Trump was talking with Bill O’Reilly in front of a Dallas audience. O’Reilly said that both he and Trump had been vaccinated, and asked Trump if he’d gotten the booster. Trump said yes, and some part of the crowd booed him. You can hear it around the 9-second mark:
Political Wire commented on this story that Trump Says He’s Unlikely to Get Booster Shot back in September:
“I’ll look at stuff later on. I’m not against it, but it’s probably not for me.”
Earlier, back in August, Trump promoted vaccines on Fox. Then the host goaded him into bashing boosters (WaPo);
But at this point Bartiromo began interrupting him and suggesting maybe there should be a “but” involved.
“It’s a great point,” she said, “but I still come back to the idea — I still come back to the idea of a booster shot. I mean, yes, you are right, the vaccines work — "
It’s at this point that Trump took Bartiromo’s cue and ran with it, pitching the booster shots for a vaccine he supports as some kind of money-grabbing conspiracy. This despite many vaccines having booster shots and more than a year of suggestions that this need would arrive one day.
I think Fox has a mandatory training course for all its news employees on how to manipulate Trump (though they could just rely on instinct, since it’s so easy). But back to the August WaPo story:
Fox News and Fox Business have tempered some of the vaccine skepticism that has been a feature of their broadcasts for much of this year. But if there’s one segment that shows how old habits die hard and how irresistible it apparently is to feed into vaccine doubts — for both their pro-Trump hosts and Trump himself — it came almost immediately after the booster campaign began in earnest.
So easy, in fact, that when they suddenly realize Covid is killing off their base and that they really do need to protect themselves, it’s too late. MAGAts drank Kool-Aid in one flavor and aren’t about to switch. Not even for their God-emperor.
