Biden exaggerates his record with COVID vaccine

As President Joe Biden tried to claim all credit for Thursday's COVID-19 vaccination surge, he mangled the numbers.

Biden exaggerates his record with COVID vaccine

Take a look at his comments during a CNN town-hall event.

COVID

BIDEN: We now have 190 million. This is because I bought everything I could and bought in sight. It worked.

THE FACTS Biden exaggerates his part.

It's false that 2 million people were vaccinated when Trump was elected. The emergency authorization for COVID-19 vaccines was not yet granted. In mid-December, the first shots were given to the public.

Biden's first day in office, Jan. 20, saw nearly 16 million doses administered. Biden did not buy all of the doses. The Trump administration had bought 300 million COVID-19 shots from Moderna and Pfizer in December, just weeks before Biden was inaugurated.

Trump's vaccine plan failed to meet its goals and was in disarray at the gate. Less than half of the 36 millions doses that the federal government distributed to states on Inauguration Day had been administered.

Despite this, the plan was a step towards an acceleration in vaccinations. This did not occur solely because Biden "went to buy everything I could."

BORDER

BIDEN was asked why he hadn't been to the U.S. Mexico border as president. He replied, "I've been there before, and I haven’t, I mean, I know it well. Although I suppose I should go down, the main point is that I haven’t had much time to get down. I have been traveling the globe, looking at the $900 billion of damage caused by weather events and hurricanes. But I have plans to -- my wife Jill is down. She has been on both banks of the river."

FACTS: Jill Biden was indeed at the border, but not as an eye and ear for a president in crisis.

He wasn't the first lady, and she wasn't president when she walked to Matamoros in Mexico to give Christmas gifts and toys to families of asylum seekers.

Seitz reported from Columbus in Ohio. This report was contributed by David Klepper, Providence, Rhode Island.

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