Trump accuses Pfizer and Moderna of working to stop his re-election

Mr Trump again claimed falsely that he had ‘won’ the election

Donald Trump has accused Pfizer and Moderna of working to stop his re-election by delaying their Covid vaccines.

The outgoing president again made the false claim he had “won” the election as he gave a White House press conference on lowering drug prices.

And he claimed that regardless of a vaccine breakthrough the Democrats would “have found the ballots someplace” to beat him.

“Big pharma ran millions of dollars of negative advertisements against me during the campaign, which I won by the way,” said Mr Trump.

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“But you know, we’ll find out.

“Almost 74 million votes. We had big pharma against us, the media against us, big tech against us and a lot of dishonesty against us.”

Mr Trump then took shots at the drug companies who announced their successful vaccines in the wake of the presidential election.

“Pfizer and others were way ahead on vaccines, you wouldn’t have a vaccine if it wasn’t me for another four years,” he said.

“Pfizer and others even decided to not assess the results of their vaccine, in other words not come out with the vaccine, until just after the election.”

During his election campaign the president often claimed the drug companies would release the vaccine after the country voted.

Both companies have refuted such claims and said that the results of vaccine trials were not manipulated by political concerns.

Pfizer’s vaccine has been tested to be 95 per cent effective and Moderna’s 94. 5 per cent.

Mr Trump insisted that the firms had acted against him in retaliation over his executive orders to lower drug prices.

“Instead of their original plan to asses them in October, they were going to come out with it in October, they decided to delay it because of what I am doing, which is fine with me, because frankly it is just a very big thing, what I am doing here," Mr Trump claimed.

Mr Trump then said that release of the vaccine news before the election could have helped him defeat Joe Biden.

“So they waited and waited and waited and thought they would come out with it a few days after the election, and it would probably have had an impact, who knows maybe it wouldn’t have,” he complained.

"I am sure they would probably have found the ballots someplace, the Democrats and the group.”