Trump talks up importance of sharing Covid vaccine with other countries while signing order to do opposite

President says ‘hopefully’ Trump administration will be ‘the next administration’ as he repeats baseless voter fraud claims

Donald Trump stressed the importance of the US government and drug manufacturers sharing coronavirus vaccines with other countries, even as he signed an order intended to ensure American citizens get them first.

“The virus really has been looked at and studied all over the world,” the outgoing president said at a White House vaccine summit, where he said only American companies were capable of developing an inoculation so quickly.

Minutes before signing the order, Mr Trump said it was crafted “to ensure that American citizens have first priority to receive the vaccine".

But he also several times indicated US officials should work with other countries on inoculating their populations.

“It’s very important,” he said, “that we share that with other nations.”

Mr Trump’s remarks came at an event during which he was slated to sign an executive order requiring Covid-19 vaccines to be shipped to inoculate Americans before people in other countries.

But on a call with reporters on Monday evening, administration officials who declined to be identified were unable to explain how it would do that.

Moncef Slaoui, the Trump administration’s vaccine czar, said later during the summit that officials envision vaccinating up to 20 million people by the end of January.

But earlier in the day, he said during a television interview he had “no idea” what was in the order the president later signed.

The president mostly stuck to his vaccine script, but addressed his ongoing challenges to the November election when he took a few questions from reporters.

“Well, we're going to have to see who the next administration is, because we won in those swing states,” he falsely claimed when asked why he did not invite any members of the Biden transition team or the president-elect’s incoming health team to the summit.

“Terrible things that went on. Whoever the next administration is will really be able to benefit from the work that we’ve done,” Mr Trump said, yet again alleging widespread voter fraud without providing evidence.

“Hopefully, the next administration will be the Trump administration,” he said. “You can’t have fraud and deception … and then slightly win a swing state. You can’t win an election like that.”

Mr Trump’s legal team has lost or dropped over 40 lawsuits – which did not allege voter fraud and caused even some Trump-appointed federal judges to chide them for providing no proof to back up their claims.

He also offered an apples-and-oranges comparison to the number of votes he got in this election – 74.2m even though he said “75m vote” – to the amount he received in 2016 and Barack Obama got in 2012. 

Each election had different numbers of total voters and different circumstances that drove the overall turnout figure.