Donald Trump has contracted coronavirus and been vaccinated against it, but it’s long been clear many of his supporters are against vaccinations. Much of that is his doing, of course, as he downplayed the dangers of coronavirus and held back about mask mandates and other mitigation efforts while in office and after his term ended.
Regardless of his own personal dealings with the virus, many of his biggest supporters are anti-vax and have fought against mask use and other safety measures. And that was made very clear on Saturday when Trump was actually booed at his own rally for talking about vaccines and their efficacy.
Appearing very wet in Alabama on Saturday night, Trump told his supporters to “take the vaccine” and actually saw some people booing him for it.
Trump advises his audience in Alabama to take the Covid vaccine pic.twitter.com/aaxQfnnxoh
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 22, 2021
“That’s okay, that’s all right. You got your freedoms. But I happened to take the vaccine,” Trump said, walking his comments back after he heard boos. “But you do have your freedoms, you have to maintain that, and you got to get your kids back to school.”
The rant is classic Trump, meandering through a very brief encouragement to get vaccinated before wondering about their effectiveness and concluding “but it does work.” Trump told the crowd that they would be “the first to know” if Trump’s vaccine doesn’t stop another breakthrough case, whatever that means, but it’s a brief look at just how severe the anti-vax sentiment is among Trump supporters.