Mother Jones has quite the piece out [1] to refute the serial liar, Ivanka Trump and her tweet that implies that her father and Moderna partnered up in early January 2020 to get a vaccine going. Thus, her father will be the one to have saved thousands of lives, if you believe Ivanka:
Fact Check: This Moderna /NIH vaccine is literally the one that President @realDonaldTrump [2] partnered with Moderna to create on January 13, 2020… I repeat January 13th, 2020.
Just be happy. This is great news for America and for the world! 🇺🇸 https://t.co/Oq9UTwOfet [3]
— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) November 16, 2020 [4]
Except no.
Ivanka’s just lying and a quick fact check actually reveals that the type of research that Moderna began – a new type of vaccine and SARS types of viruses (like COVID) began under the black president. Which Ivanka left out. Let’s let Mother Jones do a lot of the explaining:
 Yet at the time, as officials later told the Washington Post [5], “Trump’s advisers struggled to get him to take the virus seriously.” Trump received his first in-depth briefing on the virus from Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar on January 18. (During the call, the president reportedly was more interested in discussing when a ban on flavored vaping products [6] would end.) The first COVID-19 case in the United States was reported on January 20. Asked about the coronavirus publicly for the first time two days later, Trump declared, “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China.”
We recall that exact point in time. We recall because it demonstrates so clearly why electing the dumbest guy – which is what we did – carries a big price. We remember the “one guy” comment 250,000 deaths later.
We recall Trump saying this couldn’t possibly impact us and it had been taken care of. But according to Mother Jones:
 Ivanka would have us believe that behind the scenes, her father was taking it super seriously and being astoundingly proactive. So proactive, in fact, that he joined up with a much-hyped yet unproven biotechnology company [7] to kickstart a COVID vaccine one week before the virus had hit American soil and four months before he would announce Project Warp Speed. Trump’s children have ascribed many unlikely qualities to him, but clairvoyance is a new one.
Trump children count upon the MAGAs not knowing the truth nor wanting to know the truth. They count upon the MAGAs wanting to hear a good story and Ivanka has a great story to tell.
But Ivanka’s story leaves out the fact that after SARS and Swine flu, the Obama administration got seriously worried about the potential for a global pandemic and started research in vaccines on these types of viruses – though not this one specifically because they didn’t know it existed, but other coronaviruses:
n short, Trump didn’t swoop in to launch the Moderna-NIH COVID vaccine partnership. Rather, his administration piggybacked on an ongoing collaboration whose initial agreements were signed in—checking the fine print—November 2015. Maybe Ivanka should have added, “Thanks, Obama.”
Well, since Ivanka never will, we’ll do it.
Thanks, Obama.
****
Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @JasonMiciak