The former president made false claims that white people were being denied the vaccine due to their race.
FLORENCE, Arizona — Donald Trump falsely declared in a weekend rally that public health authorities are denying the COVID-19 vaccine to white people because of their race.
The former president seeded racial resentments in remarks that twisted the facts on public-health policy and exaggerated the effects of racially conscious antiviral treatment guidelines in New York.
From his speech Saturday night in Florence, Arizona:
TRUMP: “The left is now rationing lifesaving therapeutics based on race, discriminating against and denigrating ... white people to determine who lives and who dies. If you’re white you don’t get the vaccine or if you’re white you don’t get therapeutics. ... In New York state, if you’re white, you have to go to the back of the line to get medical health.”
THE FACTS: No, white people are not being excluded from vaccines, of which there is a plentiful supply. And there is no evidence they being sent to the “back of the line” for COVID-19 care as a matter of public health policy.
Trump distorted a New York policy that allows for race to be one consideration when dispensing oral antiviral treatments, which are in limited supply. The policy attempts to steer those treatments to people at the most risk of severe disease from the coronavirus.
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