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And then Trump almost admits his electoral defeat
| Reading time: 4 minutes
Is Donald Trump hinting at a change of government?
US President Donald Trump speaks publicly for the first time in more than a week. The focus of his speech is the successful search for a coronavirus vaccine, but then a few words are spoken that make one sit up and realize.
For the first time in a week, the president of the United States, Donald Trump, appeared publicly. A press conference in front of the White House was actually about the corona vaccine almost finished. But then Trump slipped in a sentence that made people sit up and take notice.
ORPresident Donald Trump has categorically ruled out a nationwide lockdown under his administration, despite persistently high corona numbers in the US This will not happen under any circumstances, said in a statement on the status of vaccine development. Friday in the Rose Garden of the White House. During that announcement, Trump apparently almost admitted defeat in the US election. Trump said, “This administration is not going to allow a lockdown, hopefully the – um – whatever happens in the future, who knows what government it will be. I think the future will tell, but I can tell you: this administration will not crash. So far, Trump has refused to acknowledge his defeat in the November 3 presidential election.
A few hours before Trump’s speech, American announcers unanimously announced the final defeat in the elections of the president still in office. Consequently, Democrat Joe Biden won with a clear majority of 306 voters. Channels CNN and ABC announced on Friday the 77-year-old winner in the embattled state of Georgia with all 16 voters. At the same time, television stations declared Trump the winner in North Carolina, which was also contested with 15 voters.
Trump speaks of an alleged electoral fraud without any evidence and accuses the Democrats of wanting to “steal” his election. On Friday he made his first statement to the press since the election results were announced. Trump did not respond to journalists’ questions during his appearance, in which he praised his administration’s fight against the corona virus.
Trump won the 2016 election with Biden’s current expected outcome against then-rival Hillary Clinton: Trump had 306 voters at the time, Clinton had 232. Trump now also has 232, according to broadcasters’ forecasts. In 2016 he had a “landslide victory”. even though he had the largest number of voters in the states, but nationally, almost three million fewer votes than Clinton.
In the national electoral vote, Biden is more than five million ahead of Trump: the Democrat has almost 78 million votes (50.8 percent), the Republican 72.7 million (47.5 percent). The president of the United States is only indirectly elected by the people. The votes of the electors decide the composition of the electoral college, which then elects the president in December. A candidate needs a majority of the 538 electorate to win.
Corona vaccine must be approved “quickly”
According to Trump, the corona vaccine developed by Pfizer and Biontech will be approved “very, very quickly” in the US The effectiveness of the vaccine recently reported by manufacturers “far exceeds all expectations.” The US government has already contractually secured the delivery of 100 million doses of vaccines and has the option of obtaining millions of doses more quickly, Trump said.
The German biontech company and the American pharmaceutical company reportedly intend to apply to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for emergency approval for the vaccine later this month. Biontech and Pfizer recently announced that their vaccine offers more than 90 percent protection against coronavirus infection based on initial findings. They want to provide 50 million doses of vaccines this year and about 1.3 billion in 2021, worldwide. Each person must be vaccinated twice with the vaccine, which must also be specially refrigerated.
The criteria for emergency approval by the FDA are not very demanding. Generally speaking, a drug or vaccine must be shown to help rather than harm. However, for full FDA approval, there are significantly higher hurdles, so this should take much longer. A government official, Moncef Slaoui, said on Friday that if an emergency license is granted, vaccinations could start as early as December.
Trump’s harsh words in the direction of New York
The United States government has contracts to make six vaccines, including Pfizer. Several experimental vaccines are in clinical trials around the world, each with tens of thousands of participants, to demonstrate their efficacy.
According to Trump, the corona vaccine will not initially be delivered to the state of New York in the US Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo does not trust the government in Washington and wants to examine the drug separately. “So we won’t send it to New York until we get approval,” Trump said.
The current president of the United States indirectly criticized Cuomo for his announcement a few weeks ago that his own experts would verify the safety of an approved vaccine. Cuomo had justified this with concerns that Trump could use a fund for political purposes and prematurely distribute it to the population.
In anticipation of the expected emergency approvals, the US government plans to vaccinate about 20 million people starting in December. About 25 to 30 million people should be vaccinated in January and the following months, said the representative of the government’s vaccination program, Moncef Slaoui, after Trump’s speech in the rose garden of the White House. As soon as more vaccines are approved, the number can increase significantly. There are about 330 million people in the United States.
