In a television appearance Thursday night, Democrat Joe Biden praised President Trump for “shifting the vaccine” as the treatment for combating the coronavirus began its way across the U.S.
“I think what he’s done, shifted the vaccine, has been optimistic,” Biden told guest Stephen Colbert during an appearance on “The Late Show.”
Biden’s comments came less than a week after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted formal approval for the Pfizer and BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, clarifying the way for its nationwide distribution.
Just days later, the first doses of the vaccine were introduced into the arms of healthcare workers and high-risk people – with a wider rollout, at no cost to recipients, planned in the coming weeks and months.
In a video released shortly after the FDA’s green light, President Trump stopped developing the vaccine as a “medical miracle,” noting that the work was done in just nine months – with the help of millions of dollars invested by the federal government.
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Then on Thursday, an FDA advisory panel unanimously recommended a second vaccine, this one developed by Moderna. The agreement meant that an agreement with the FDA was likely to come soon.
In his conversation with Colbert, Biden talked about how much the effort to get vaccines was developed and distributed.
“It’s one thing to vaccinate X number of spots across the country,” Biden said. “It’s a very different thing to get the vaccine out of that tube, into a syringe, into someone’s arm. The vaccine – that’s a monumental job and maybe This is the single most important effort in the United States, to spread something around the world, across the country. “
Biden said he intended to ask Trump to agree more funding for vaccines if Congress passes a bill for the president’s signature.
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“We’re going to need more vaccines. We need more money,” Biden told Colbert. “We need to be more able to spread this. But it’s going on. And I believe we’ll get one. I think we’ll get 100 million vaccines taking place. That and some vaccines are needed, you know, two different views, two different times.I know, and one of the things that I want the president to do now is order more of it. “
The discussion about vaccination was part of a wider conversation between Biden and Colbert, in which Biden’s wife, Dr. Jill Biden, also developed. The conversation also addressed the investigation into Hunter Biden’s son’s tax issues and as well as the recent discussion about how Jill Biden used the title “Dr.”