Fact Checking President Biden’s Town Hall Claims About the Vaccine Rollout

The president’s statement is false.

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At a town hall Thursday night in Baltimore, hosted by CNN and moderated by Anderson Cooper, President Joe Biden made a false claim regarding his involvement in the COVID-19 vaccine rollout. 

At one point during the event, Biden told Cooper: “When I first got elected—when I first was elected, there were only 2 million people who had COVID shots in the United States of America—had the vaccine. Now we got 190 million, because I went out and bought everything I could do.”

This is a false statement. 

As we mentioned in an earlier fact check, the first COVID-19 vaccine was first administered on December 14, which means that there were no COVID vaccines administered in November, when Biden was first elected.  

We also noted, per the Bloomberg COVID-19 vaccine tracker, there were 927,000 COVID doses recorded on January 19, the day before Biden’s first day in office. In total, by January 20, according to the Washington Post, there were about 21 million COVID-19 vaccines administered. 

In December 2020, Donald Trump doubled the purchase of Moderna and Pfizer  vaccines (set to deliver at the end of July 2020), bringing the total number of combined Moderna and Pfizer vaccines to 400 million. 

Furthermore, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office: “As of December 31, 2020, the government had at least 800 million vaccine doses under contract expected to be delivered by July 31, 2021, pending any issues with clinical trials, EUA issuance.”

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.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Bill Nelson

    Stunning how the comments went into the swamp so quickly.

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    Justin Stapley

    I think it's very unfortunate that so many media outlets have treated Biden's false statements with kid gloves after four years of treating every lie and exaggeration out of Trump's mouth as akin to an assault on democracy.

    Don't get me wrong. I LIKED a media atmosphere that gave no quarter to a President whose grasp of facts and truth was tenuous at best. What I don't like is that this atmosphere completely changed once Trump was out of office. This inconsistency and hypocrisy is proving that we've learned very little from the Trump era and risk setting the stage for an escalation of what we desperately need to move on from.

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  3. Kathleen Carbery

    Just a little fix maybe: "In December 2020, Donald Trump doubled the purchase of Moderna and Pfizer vaccines (set to deliver at the end of July 2020), bringing the total number of combined Moderna and Pfizer vaccines to 400 million. " s/b "set to deliver by the end of July 2021", perhaps?

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    rlritt

    Do you think he meant when he was sworn in? HR wasn't actually president until Jan?

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      rlritt

      Biden. Not HR!?

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    Victor Clairmont

    Thank you for the fact check—-

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      Bill Nelson

      A factor of 20 is not ran in any mill I’ve seen.

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    2. Nicco

      Lying about run of the mill, inconsequential things is deeply disturbing. If it doesn’t really matter, why bother being dishonest? If you did a good job, why do you need to pretend you did an amazing job (especially when that’s demonstrably false)? Besides, this is becoming a pattern with the current administration. Pad the stats and hope either no one calls him on it or the news cycle moves on fast enough to essentially get away with it.
      Biden could have been a great President. He had an opportunity to lead the country out of a horribly dark time. Turns out he’s a lousy leader.

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        1. Nicco

          “Give me a break” is Biden’s favorite deflection when he gets called on his “exaggerations.”
          Good leaders don’t lie about stupid, meaningless things (or anything) to make themselves look better. Good is leaders don’t deflect blame when they’re accountable. Biden is a good politician, but he is a bad leader.

          And your suspicions are incorrect. I was optimistic that Biden would be a breath of fresh air. I was rooting for him. Why should I brush aside his serial dishonesty? Because his predecessor was Donald Trump? Because all presidents lie? Sorry, but that’s not gonna cut it.

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            Bill Nelson

            “ I was optimistic that Biden would be a breath of fresh air.“
            He has a long history that says otherwise. And I think that his political skills are over inflated. His self professed skills at working across the isle are just that, self professed.

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        2. Avatar photo
          Bill Nelson

          Biden lies consistently about important things. For years he claimed his wife was killed by a drunk driver. Not true, the driver of the truck was fully exonerated, and the likeliest cause was that his wife crossed the center line. The truck drivers life was essentially ruined. Not inconsequential thing at all. This is what Biden is.

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      Ohio Gas Hog

      It's only considered "normal" and "run-of-the-mill" because the media is the gatekeeper to who gets the benefit of doubt and what exaggerations are acceptable.

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        1. Raincheck

          Come on. Drop the partisan stuff now and then. Let’s hold both sides accountable. Nothing gets better when politicians think their own voters don’t care if they lie.

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          Ohio Gas Hog

          Sorry. Guess I'm old school. Facts matter. Don't like it when Trump does it or when Biden does it. Not a big fan of whataboutism which is what some people do when you are critical of something Joe does. If I said something so far from the truth at work, I probably would lose my job. Rightfully so.

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      Matmos

      True, but a low bar.

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    Tmcke

    Can we see this as the sort of statement made when the matter is no longer at issue. So really, he likely does not sit down before a public event and work out the exact time line re the vaccine. We do know that Trump had no interest at all in pushing the vaccine and Biden did push it. So I assume like any normal person the exact details just slip away.

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    1. Joe1776

      Biden and Harris suggested we shouldn't trust the vaccine.

      https://gop.com/research/biden-repeatedly-undermined-the-vaccine/

      In any case nothing either Trump or Biden say has any credibility at all. Our federal government has no credibility and the sooner people realize that the more likely they are to vote in a way that does not give the government more power.

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      1. AS Upstate

        That "article" (just an RNC press release) is hilariously misleading. It's just a bunch of citations to Biden saying that the vaccine will be trustworthy once it goes through the proper approvals. That said, Harris's comments saying that a vaccine approved under Trump would not be trustworthy was, in my opinion, her lowest moment in the campaign.

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  8. Joe1776

    Thanks for the fact check. But at this point no one can believe anything our government says. Trump also of course had zero credibility. And Biden is more of the same but most of the legacy media and government bureaucracy is happy to cover for him.
    Did anyone in the military go against him on Afghanistan?
    Is he "the big guy"?
    Will his 3.5 spending plan cost zero?
    Did the NIH fund gain of function research?
    Do we know how China used Eco Health Alliance research?
    Did the FBI really believe Sussman or did they know the Russia conspiracy theory was all just politics?
    Does anyone think the DOJ would have taken any action, unless there was a special counsel?
    50 former officials spread conspiracy theory that Hunter Biden story is Russian disinformation.
    Biden is barely coherent but to the extent he is he is likely trying to mislead us and the rest of his cronies are no better.


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      1. Joe1776

        Unless you can identify a crime then it is none of the FBI's business. The FBI is not the democrats personal oppo research firm. I would also say it is not the FBI's job to find out why Hillarie's campaign (Steele) who was talking with Russian agents- unless they have specific reasons to believe they were breaking a federal law.

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            PaulH

            Manafort gave his former (and hopefully future) clients campaign data to impress them with his access to Trump and to show that Trump might win. In other words, it was business development (sleazy BD, but that's how Manafort rolls).

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      rlritt

      Its not his 3.5 spending plan. He told the Congress to reduce it to 1.5 over 10 years.

      Who cares about Hunter Biden? He's a grownup. He hasn't given him a high paying job in the administration for he would be totally inqualified.

      Some people keep saying that but I have recently seen him speak and he seems fine to me.

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        Bill Nelson

        A job in the administration would be a significant pay cut for the young Mr Biden.

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          rlritt

          I don't think he makes as much as the Trump spawn who got salaries and access to the rich and powerful. And perks like patents from China.

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            PaulH

            Doesn't that depend on how much of his "art" he sells?

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    3. Anthony

      I agree with all of your points, with the exception of your inference that there was no legitimate basis for investigating Russia’s contacts with the Trump campaign members. If agents of a foreign government meet with members of a presidential campaign to provide assistance to that campaign, the United States government should investigate those actions.

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      1. Joe1776

        Anthony it is fine to agree to disagree and I respect your view. But I am concerned about what happened for a few reasons.

        First, meeting with an an "agent" of a foreign power is not a crime. If there is reason to think the assistance is illegal then ok sure. So if they had credible reasons to think they were meeting to rig the voting machines or something then yes by all means investigate! But there never was an identified crime, and so IMO the Feds have no business generally investigating a political candidate. This is classic politburo/communist maneuvering. I find that very troubling. I realize that laws may allow these agencies to spy on opposing candidates legally through various legal provisions but I think that needs to end. Reporters and journalists should be the ones investigating politicians not our federal law enforcement.

        It is becoming clear that many people in our agencies knew this was all Hillary's political strategy. If you are a good investigator you know to look up sources. And this went high enough, and the sources so obviously lacking, that I am certain many in these agencies knew this was political. Sussman was pushing this to the FBI and Brennan even made a note that Clinton was going to try to do this in order to pull attention away from her illegal server. It is extremely naïve to think that everyone in these agencies really thought they were investigating some real crime. In fact no crime dealing with Trump was ever even mentioned.

        My own view is the director of the FBI should have a much shorter term in order to ensure transparency. Our FBI should also be much smaller and weaker. It is absolutely scary that the DOJ is saying they consider parents that are concerned about their children's schools should be treated as a terrorist threat just because highly political NSBA tells them to.
        https://reason.com/2021/10/06/ag-merrick-garland-fbi-critical-race-theory-parents-schools-domestic-terrorists/

        We need to leave local criminal cases to the states and scare people into thinking the federal government will come for them if they dare give their opinion at a school board meeting.

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        1. Anthony

          Joe thank you for your thoughtful response. We might just end up agreeing to disagree but I believe that a thorough investigation was justified based on the actions of the Trump campaign to engage with Russia and their agents to obtain damaging information about the Clinton campaign. I am not a supporter of the democratic party but they were clearly the victim of a crime committed by the Russian government. Russia hacked the DNC server, stole private information and weaponized it against the Clinton campaign. When you combine the secret communications between the Trump campaign and the timed release of the stolen information by Russia through Wikileaks to effect our election, law enforcement and intelligence agencies would be derelict in not conducting an investigation. This is probably not the appropriate thread to rehash the entire matter, but I believe justification for conducting the investigation is strengthened the closer one reviews the timeline. That being said, law enforcement and/or intelligence agencies should be held accountable for any wrongdoing that they may have engaged in with regard to the investigation.

          We are in agreement regarding the Biden administration and Merrick Garland. Purposefully politicizing the Justice Department weakens the agency and everyone's confidence in it. I would be open to considering shortening the term of the FBI director, but just not sure that would provide much benefit or transparency since the director ultimately works at the will of the president as President Trump demonstrated.

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    Bill Nelson

    I wonder if this is something Biden has been told and believes.

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    1. Joe1776

      He has been called out before on pretty much this very same lie.

      https://factcheck.thedispatch.com/p/fact-check-joe-biden-said-we-didnt

      It is not that he is unaware it is false, he just doesn't care. He also knows a 3.5 trillion dollar spending bill will cost more than zero dollars.

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      rlritt

      It probably part of the speech he was given. Presidential speech writer is actual!y a real job. Fact checking goes along with it. Biden didn't personally vaccinate people, so he can't just look on his calendar and check the date.

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        Bill Nelson

        The speaker has to have an essential grasp of the facts and that wasn’t even close. In early 2021 COVID and vaccines would have been at the top of the list of issues Biden was involved with every day.

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          rlritt

          "In total, by January 20, according to the Washington Post, there were about 21 million COVID-19 vaccines administered."

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  10. Avatar photo
    JDW

    Even when it comes to Trump and Biden, I appreciate The Dispatch is vigorously fair.

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      William Cotton

      You mean, they use the standard interpretation of the phrase “fact check”?

      The bar is set pretty low these days!

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