NIAID director Anthony Fauci told Fox News Sunday he would “make all the difference in the world” if former President Trump urged his supporters to get the coronavirus vaccine.
Why does it matter: Republicans – especially men in the party – are the demographic groups least likely to say they plan to get vaccinated against the virus, recent research suggests.
By the numbers: 49% of Republican men interviewed in an NPR / PBS NewsHour / Marist poll conducted in early March indicated they would not be vaccinated, while 47% of those who supported Trump in 2020 said the same.
What is he saying: Fauci said that if Trump urged his supporters to get the vaccine, “I can’t imagine … that they wouldn’t be vaccinated.”
- “If he went out and said, ‘go and get vaccinated, it is very important for your health, the health of your family and the health of the country’, it seems absolutely inevitable that the vast majority of people who are his close followers will listen to him. ”
- “I am very surprised that the high percentage of Republicans say they don’t want to be vaccinated. I don’t understand where this is coming from. This is not a political issue. This is a public health problem. “
Flashback: Trump encouraged his supporters to get the coronavirus vaccine for the first time at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in late February, saying, “Everyone should get their injection,” after noting that the vaccine is “painless”.
Methodology: NPR / PBS NewsHour / Marist Poll with 1,227 adults, from March 3 to 8, in English and Spanish, using cell phones and landlines, margin of error ± 3.4 percentage points.