A viral tweet from legal scholar Laurence Tribe claims that White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany “‘promised a vaccine’ for Covid-19 in 2016.”
Tribe’s tweet was itself a quote tweet of a viral tweet from Vox associate editor of politics and policy Aaron Rupar, who shared the clip with the simple caption, “wut.” The 12-second clip shows McEnany saying: “[Trump] tore through bureaucratic barriers so we can get a safe, effective, and timely vaccine. Once again, compare that to Obama/Biden, where they promised a vaccine, they vastly underperformed.”
The clip in question comes from a longer interview that McEnany did on Fox & Friends Tuesday morning. In discussing the government’s work in creating a coronavirus vaccine through the expedited process known as Operation Warp Speed, McEnany said: “We have renowned experts over at Operation Warp Speed that are working on this, President Trump tore through bureaucratic barriers so we can get a safe, effective, and timely vaccine. Once again, compare that to Obama/Biden, where they promised a vaccine, they vastly underperformed, and you have Biden’s advisor back in the Obama/Biden days saying it’s a pure miracle, fortuity, that swine flu wasn’t a mass casualty event of our time.”
When taken in its entirety, it’s clear that McEnany’s comments about Obama and Biden’s vaccine response were referring to the Obama administration’s response to the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, not the coronavirus pandemic.
If you have a claim you would like to see us fact check, please send us an email at factcheck@thedispatch.com. If you would like to suggest a correction to this piece or any other Dispatch article, please email corrections@thedispatch.com.
Please note that we at The Dispatch hold ourselves, our work, and our commenters to a higher standard than other places on the internet. We welcome comments that foster genuine debate or discussion—including comments critical of us or our work—but responses that include ad hominem attacks on fellow Dispatch members or are intended to stoke fear and anger may be moderated.
You are currently using a limited time guest pass and do not have access to commenting. Consider subscribing to join the conversation.
With your membership, you only have the ability to comment on The Morning Dispatch articles. Consider upgrading to join the conversation everywhere.