Just two days after Democrat Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 presidential election, drugmaker Pfizer announced its COVID-19 vaccine proved effective in protecting people from the sickness.
Then-President Donald Trump questioned the timing of the announcement, saying, “Pfizer and others even decided to not assess the results of their vaccine, in other words, not come out with the vaccine until just after the election.”
He suggested the delay was payback for Trump’s effort to rein in the cost of medications for elderly patients.
“[It’s] because of what I did with favored nations and these other elements,” he said.
In September 2020, Trump signed an executive order benchmarking the price Americans pay through Medicare for prescription drugs to the cost of those same drugs in other markets outside the U.S.
Trump asserted that the original plan called for the COVID vaccine data to be released in October.
Pfizer’s CEO Albert Bourla, in fact, told NBC’s “Today” at the time that his company would know whether the vaccine worked by the end of October.
Hellbound and Down 