Day 1,390: Trump team tries to take unearned credit on highly effective Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine

Trump complained about the timing more than celebrating the finding.

Pfizer, the pharmaceutical giant, announced extremely promising results stemming from their COVID-19 vaccine. At more than 90% effective, it has the chance to nearly single-handedly eliminate the spread of the coronavirus.

Mike Pence couldn’t wait to take credit on behalf of Donald Trump.

Except, like the kid who goofs off during a class project and tries to take credit, the Trump administration did no such thing, as Pfizer took no government funds and there was no public-private partnership of any kind.

“We were never part of the Warp Speed. We have never taken any money from the U.S. government, or from anyone,” Pfizer’s head of vaccine research and development Dr. Kathrin Jansen told the New York Times.

Trump, meanwhile, instead of celebrating news that effective treatment might be rapidly on the way for a disease that has killed 240,000 Americans, whined that Pfizer didn’t announced the vaccine before the election. (Pfizer claimed that the latest clinical data only became available over the past few days.)

Trump has promised the moon and back, bragging about partnerships and task forces, the majority of which did little. At the end of the day, it was a private company, partnering for a foreign entity, and taking no Trump help, who found the most promising coronavirus treatment of the year.

1,390 days in, 72 to go

Follow us on Twitter at @TrumpTimer