In response to Victor Davis Hansen
Vic, let’s slow this down a bit—because there’s an irony in your argument that’s doing a disservice to your overall point.
From a politically neutral standpoint (I’ll stay mum on the laptop saga and the 51-letter psyops), I think it’s fair to examine the vaccine announcement timeline and how it may have played a role in shaping public perception ahead of the 2020 election. But the core of your argument hinges on this: that Donald Trump was harmed by not being able to benefit from the early announcement of a vaccine that, at the time, was believed to be remarkably effective.
Okay—let’s take that at face value.
You’re suggesting that Pfizer delayed the announcement of its vaccine’s efficacy in order to deny Trump a last-minute political win. In short, he was denied a chance to say “I delivered the miracle.” If that’s the theory, and if the data really was solid and timely, I can see how that might have influenced some undecided voters. Fair enough.
But here’s the problem—by now, we know those efficacy claims didn’t exactly hold up.
The “nearly 100% protection” idea turned out to be an oversell. Many who took the vaccine (and the boosters) still caught COVID, sometimes more than once—including Joe Biden himself. The narrative evolved, and not always helpfully: first, it was “you won’t get COVID if you’re vaccinated,” then it became “you won’t get seriously ill,” and eventually, even that line began to fray. In fact, those same overstated efficacy claims became a huge liability for Biden later on.
So let’s turn the question around.
Had Trump been able to claim victory over COVID thanks to a Pfizer press release in late October 2020—and had he campaigned on that “mission accomplished” moment—he would’ve been directly tied to those same inflated promises. Then, when the inevitable vaccine breakthrough infections came, he’d have owned that fallout. Hard.
Would the benefit of a short-term bump have outweighed the longer-term reputational hit? Hard to say. But I think we can agree it wouldn’t have been the clean win it looked like at the time.
And that’s where your argument gets fuzzy.
Because in trying to show how Trump was denied credit for the vaccine announcement, you’re also implicitly arguing that it would’ve been good for him to get credit for something that—at least in terms of public trust and scientific accuracy—was shaky at best.
That’s not election theft. That’s just politics meeting reality on a delay timer.
Even Trump himself has backed off from crowing about “Warp Speed” in recent years. And not without reason—his base became increasingly skeptical of the vaccines, and the political winds shifted hard. If the vaccine rollout had been his final campaign crescendo, and then it turned into a credibility boomerang just months later, his post-election brand might have taken a hit from both sides.
So yes—Pfizer’s timing was questionable. Yes—there was coordination between media, tech, and government messaging that deserves scrutiny. But to frame it all as a “Trump was robbed” moment because he couldn’t ride a PR high from what would later be seen as a scientific overpromise—that’s shaky ground.
Sometimes the truth isn’t that someone was denied a chance to lie. It’s that the moment they missed saved them from having to walk back the lie later.