Donald Trump Encouraged People at His Rally to Get Vaccinated. They Booed Him.

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Donald Trump spoke at a rally in Cullman, Alabama, on Saturday night, returning to his safest of safe spaces to deliver the kind of Big Lie–infused macho fantasy babble that typically sends his audiences swooning and guffawing into the night.

But! The rally didn’t go exactly as scripted.

“You know what? I believe totally in your freedoms, I do. You gotta do what you have to do.” Raucous applause. “But I recommend taking the vaccine! I did it. It’s good. Take the vaccines.” Confusion, disagreement, grumbling, then booing. “No, that’s okay, that’s all right, you’ve got your freedoms. But I happened to take the vaccine.”

“If it doesn’t work, you’ll be the first to know.” Relief, delight, laughter, sweet release.

Two notes: 

1) According to a Trump adviser, the then-president and his wife, Melania, got the vaccine in January—a fact that wasn’t reported until March

2) The rally brought thousands of people to York Family Farms in Cullman County, which is currently in the midst of a huge COVID spike

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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