Polls consistently show that Trump supporters are the most resistantto getting vaccinated against the novel coronavirus, and former President Donald Trump doesn’t seem all that interested in changing their minds.
The Daily Beast reports that Trump advisers say they’ve tried to convince the former president to do more to get his diehard fans to get vaccinated, but so far he hasn’t done much other than occasionally say that people should take the vaccine.
“I have practically begged him to get out there constantly and make videos calling on his supporters who are hesitant to get their shots,” one Trump confidante told The Daily Beast. “Last time I checked in, I hadn’t heard of any positive movement in that direction.”
Former Trump HHS official Michael Caputo similarly tells the website that he informed Trump last year that his own supporters were the least likely to get vaccinated.
“We were talking amongst ourselves in HHS in August, saying that it was ironic that the most vaccine-hesitant among us were our friends, our allies,” he said, “and we still face that question.”
Trump actually was vaccinated before he left the White House in January, but he declined to have photos or videos taken of the vaccination and he kept his vaccination a secret until he talked about it at the Conservative Political Action Conference weeks later.