---
title: "Political interference with science agencies by the first Trump administration"
chunk: 6/10
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_interference_with_science_agencies_by_the_first_Trump_administration"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:18:13.322702+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

==== Vaccine development and approval ====
Trump stressed the need for a COVID-19 vaccine as soon as possible, and said one is being developed at "warp speed" (see Operation Warp Speed). He repeatedly suggested that a COVID-19 vaccine would be available before the end of 2020, possibly before the November 3 election. In mid-September 2020, Trump's chief of staff Mark Meadows predicted that 100 million doses of a vaccine would be available by the end of October, though CDC Director Robert Redfield told the Senate that the public should not expect vaccine distribution before mid-2021. Other federal scientists including Operation Warp Speed chief scientist Moncef Slaoui and NIAID director Fauci also said that Meadows' prediction was unlikely, given the time frame needed for clinical trials. Trump dismissed or contradicted these comments. When Redfield told a congressional committee that wearing a mask could be more effective in halting the spread of the disease than a vaccine, and that a vaccine would not be generally available to the public until the second or third quarter of 2021, Trump said that Redfield had "made a mistake" and that his vaccine prediction was "just incorrect information." Republican allies of the president endorsed Trump's comments; House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said "If I just take the words of the CDC and the president, the president is right." On September 21, Trump predicted a vaccine would be available "within a matter of weeks". The next day Fauci said it was impossible to know when a vaccine would be available, because "no one's seen the data"; the clinical trials were still "blinded" so that no one knew how the test groups and control groups compare to each other. Fauci had previously said that the efficacy of a vaccine might first become known in November or December.
In late September, the FDA said it planned to announce additional criteria for emergency approval of a vaccine: to ensure that the vaccine is safe and effective, the clinical trial reportedly must follow trial participants for at least two months after their second shot, and the placebo group must show at least five severe cases of COVID-19 and some cases in older people. The move came following urging from Eric Topol and other public health experts, who believed that delaying the release of a vaccine until after the third week in November would increase trust among the public. The agency said it wanted to make its criteria public to bolster public trust in the process, as polling showed nearly half of the public would reject any vaccine they regard as rushed and politically tainted. At a press conference the next day, Trump said that the White House "may or may not" approve the new guidelines, saying it “sounds like a political move”. The White House blocked action on the guidelines for several weeks, objecting to the two-month-followup provision which would make it highly unlikely that a vaccine could be approved by election day. However, on October 6, the FDA unilaterally published the guidelines on its website, following which the White House approved them. Trump complained about the White House approval, claiming that the stricter guidelines were a conspiracy against his re-election. For months, FDA administrator Hahn stated that "science, not politics" would govern the FDA's decisions on whether to approve companies' applications for approval for COVID-19 vaccines.
In late October, Politico reported that HHS chief Azar was trying to get permission to fire FDA administrator Hahn over the FDA's insistence that a COVID-19 vaccine meet safety standards before being approved. On December 10, a standing committee of outside scientists reviewed the application for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, and late that afternoon they recommended that the FDA authorize it for emergency use. The next morning, December 11, Trump ordered FDA Commissioner Hahn via Twitter to "stop playing games and start saving lives!!!", adding "Get the dam  [sic] vaccines out NOW, Dr. Hahn." The same morning White House chief of staff Mark Meadows reportedly told Hahn in a telephone call that Hahn would be out of a job if he didn't give FDA approval to the vaccine that day; Hahn later said that report was inaccurate and he was merely "encouraged to continue working expeditiously." The FDA, which was already planning to issue the authorization the morning of December 12, issued it the evening of December 11 instead, a change which was not expected to affect the timeline for delivery of the first shots. Scholars were critical of the Trump administration's effort to pressure the FDA during its safety and effectiveness review; Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, said the campaign was an "unforced error" that "creates a veneer of political meddling" and reduced public confidence in the vaccine.

== Environmental agencies ==