Always ready with useful idiocy, Trump’s inaction on COVID while POTUS* was beyond negligence and continues by keeping his own vaccination secret from his supporters. A consequence comes parallel with Russian disinformation efforts to discredit vaccines specific to the US. The net effect is also to help demand for the Russian COVID vaccine. Likely more about Trump-Russia will finally become known in coming weeks because of the expected prosecutions.
Biden will do something in the next few weeks that Trump never could: Preparing for Retaliation Against Russia, U.S. Confronts Hacking by China – The New York Times https://t.co/FMCBjTbbMQ
— Frank Figliuzzi (@FrankFigliuzzi1) March 8, 2021
Wall Street Journal: Russian disinformation campaign is working to undermine confidence Covid-19 vaccines used in the US
Trump has long cast doubt on vaccines, dating back to before he was president when he claimed, “When I was growing up, autism wasn’t really a factor and now all of a sudden, it’s an epidemic. Everybody has their theory. My theory and I study it because I have young children, my theory is the shots. We’re giving these massive injections at one time, and I really think it does something to the children.”
The reason Trump hid his vaccination.https://t.co/5YWnAobpla
— Tea Pain (@TeaPainUSA) March 8, 2021
According to a report from Vice News, former President Donald Trump is giving an assist to Russian propagandists who are trying to undermine confidence in two of the COVID-19 vaccines being distributed in the United States.
Last week it was reported that Trump and his wife Melania secretly received the vaccine and kept it quiet from his supporters after almost year of downplaying COVID-19 fears which, in turn, contributed to his re-election loss.
According to the Vice report, Trump’s continuing silence on getting vaccinated is playing into Russia’s hands.
A quick look at one of the currently active sites, News Front, which is run by the Russian secret service from Crimea, shows that once again Moscow is seeking to stoke fears by regurgitating old claims about the efficacy of vaccines’ and baseless suggestions that vaccines cause dangerous side effects.
The site is filled with stories like the widely debunked claims that the Pfizer vaccine caused Bell’s palsy in recipients, the false claim that it isn’t effective in older people, and that people continue to contract COVID-19 after getting the vaccine shot.
“We can say these outlets are directly linked to Russian intelligence services,” an official from the State Department’s Global Engagement Center told the Wall Street Journal. “They’re all foreign-owned, based outside of the United States. They vary a lot in their reach, their tone, their audience, but they’re all part of the Russian propaganda and disinformation ecosystem.”
For decades, Russia has been boosting baseless health-related misinformation, like the completely unfounded claim that the CIA purposely created HIV to cause the AIDS epidemic.
In recent years, Moscow had an ally in the White House for vaccine disinformation in the form of Trump.
Trump has been a vaccine skeptic for more than a decade, going back to a press conference he held in Mar-a-Lago in 2007.
Europe starts formal review of Russia's Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine https://t.co/icVOagTHlJ pic.twitter.com/4rNcT2dtBt
— Reuters (@Reuters) March 4, 2021
