Discussions about Trump being involved in the spot never gained traction given his estrangement from the Presidents Club at the end of his term and the bitter way in which he departed Washington on Inauguration Day, people familiar with the matter said.
It was a conversation on that January day between former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama that formed the basis of the vaccination campaign, which debuted Thursday. Because Trump made the decision to not join his predecessors in that historic moment, a person close to the project said, he wasn’t asked to be involved in the public service announcement.
Trump expressed little interest in joining his predecessors to promote the vaccine, and the team that organized the PSA did not view it as likely that the 45th president would participate, leaving little opening for his inclusion.
“He has made no signals of wanting to be included in these types of moments,” an aide to a former president told CNN.
A host of reasons
There does not appear to be one single reason for Trump’s exclusion, one person involved in the production said, but rather a sense that his participation was never a real possibility.
A spokesperson for the Ad Council, which produced the spot, said it “was something that was started with the former presidents while President Trump was still in office” when asked why Trump wasn’t included.
Spokespeople for Trump did not respond to questions about why he wasn’t involved.
When he was in office, Trump administration officials discussed how and when he might receive a coronavirus vaccine, including the prospect of doing it on-camera. Yet Trump himself did not appear particularly eager to be seen getting the vaccine, one person familiar with the situation said, even though he was touting its development and wanted to take credit for it.
A former Trump administration official said the former President was also highly sensitive to his image after being hospitalized with Covid and did not appear receptive to any photo-op that could put his health and fitness on display again.
There was also discussion at the time of Ivanka Trump receiving the shot publicly, an idea that did not come to fruition, either. Instead, Vice President Mike Pence and his wife Karen Pence were the highest-profile Trump administration officials to be seen getting the shot.
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