Geraldo Rivera wants to name Covid-19 vaccine ‘The Trump’ given ‘everybody telling him he’s got to give up’
FOX News pundit Geraldo Rivera has proposed that the new coronavirus vaccine should be named after the outgoing President Donald Trump. Rivera said that it would be a "nice gesture" to a defeated Trump who is being pressured by his party members to give up the fight to overturn the presidential election result.
Rivera's suggestion came as Pfizer applied for an emergency approval from the FDA for its novel coronavirus vaccine on Friday, November 20, and said that it was ready to begin shipping doses within hours. The political pundit made the statement while speaking on 'Fox & Friends' on Friday, and said that naming the vaccine after Trump would cheer the Republican.
"With the world so divided and everybody telling him he’s got to give up and it’s time to leave and time to transition and all the rest of it, why not name the vaccine ‘The Trump?'" Rivera said. "Make it like, ‘Have you gotten your Trump yet?' It would be a nice gesture to him, and, years from now, it would become just a kind of generic name."
Pfizer and partners BionTech, earlier this month, revealed that the results of their trial showed that the vaccine was over 90 percent effective against Covid-19. Days later, another biotech firm, Moderna, also announced the success of its vaccine and said that it could be ready for distribution within weeks. President Trump, shortly after Moderna's announcement, claimed credit for both the vaccines, saying that it "took place on my watch."
Trump tweeted: "Another Vaccine just announced. This time by Moderna, 95 [percent] effective. For those great 'historians,' please remember that these great discoveries, which will end the China Plague, all took place on my watch!"
Moderna, in its announcement last week, stated that its two-dose vaccine was 94.5 percent successful at fighting the deadly novel coronavirus in infected volunteers. It also added that Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, spearheading the coronavirus battle in the country, has stated that the vaccine may be rolled out as soon as December.
"Doses could be available to high-risk individuals by the end of December," Fauci told MSNBC. "The data are striking, really quite impressive." The news comes days after Pfizer announced the success of its own coronavirus vaccine. The latest news on a successful vaccine also prompted a huge stock rush on Wall Street as the Dow Jones doubled premarket gains and was up 500 points before the opening bell. Meanwhile, Moderna's shares rocketed 13 percent higher and are set to surge.
Trump, meanwhile, has still not conceded defeat in the 2020 presidential elections despite Georgia declaring that President-elect Joe Biden won the state after a recount. The president's campaign has filed multiple lawsuits against some battleground states claiming fraud in the election process, without providing any evidence to back their claims. Republican Senator Mitt Romney, in a statement on Friday, denounced Trump and said that the president was attempting to "subvert will of the people" in an "undemocratic" attempt to overturn the results of the election.