WASHINGTON — President Trump on Monday demanded drug companies make their data on the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines available to the public, suggesting that the “question” over whether the jab actually saved lives has “ripped apart” the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“It is very important that the Drug Companies justify the success of their various Covid Drugs. Many people think they are a miracle that saved Millions of lives. Others disagree! With CDC being ripped apart over this question, I want the answer, and I want it NOW,” Trump wrote in a lengthy Truth Social post.
“I have been shown information from Pfizer, and others, that is extraordinary, but they never seem to show those results to the public. Why not??? They go off to the next ‘hunt’ and let everyone rip themselves apart, including Bobby Kennedy Jr. and CDC, trying to figure out the success or failure of the Drug Companies Covid work.”
In 2020, the first Trump administration rolled out Operation Warp Speed, which expedited research, testing and approval of COVID vaccines as the pandemic ravaged the country during the presidential election year.
At least 70% of Americans have received both jabs of the COVID-19 vaccine as of 2025 — with over 711 million doses of the vaccine have been administered in the US, per the World Health Organization.
But the COVID shots, administered by Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, were also criticized as early as 2021 for not preventing breakthrough infections, meaning those who received the vaccine still got the virus.
Trump rarely speaks about the pandemic other than to praise the development of the COVID vaccines, which he called a “Christmas miracle” as production was ramping up in December 2020 just before he left the White House.
Just 30% of Republicans now view the COVID jab as safe, while 55% of independents and 87% of Democrats do, a Kaiser Family Foundation poll found in May.
The president’s critics claim he wasn’t serious enough about the pandemic in the beginning, while even some of his supporters have criticized his initial approval of lockdowns in March 2020.
Vaccine science has recently upended relationships within the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), with Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. finding himself at odds with other officials after ending emergency authorization for COVID jabs and refining their eligibility standards to exclude most healthy adults and children.
CDC Director Susan Monarez was also fired on Wednesday after less than a month of being sworn in. A White House official told The New York Times she was shown the door after it was made clear her opinions on vaccines differed from those of Kennedy, who is a known vaccine skeptic.
Monarez’s lawyers Abbe Lowell and Mark Zaid argued that she was let go due to her unwillingness to fire other health officials and her support of vaccines.
“When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts, she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda. For that, she has been targeted,” they said in a statement. “This is not about one official. It is about the systematic dismantling of public health institutions, the silencing of experts, and the dangerous politicization of science.
The turmoil at HHS continued as other top CDC officials resigned in protest of Morarez leaving her post, including Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, head of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases; Dr. Dan Jernigan, head of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases and chief medical officer Dr. Deb Houry.
Kennedy’s views on vaccines have ranged from calling the COVID-19 vaccine “the deadliest vaccine ever made” in 2021, to saying in 2024: “If vaccines are working for somebody, I’m not going to take them away.”
Trump in 2020 boasted: “We are delivering millions of doses of a safe and effective vaccine that will soon end this terrible pandemic and save millions and millions of lives.”
House Republicans have also been investigating whether the production of the COVID shots was slow-walked before Election Day — and subpoenaed a former Pfizer scientist for testimony about the allegations in July.
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