Donald Trump’s pandemic response was burdened by all kinds of failures, but among the most politically significant problems the former president created was over-promising and under-delivering. Trump, a little too eager to win assorted news cycles, had a ridiculous habit of making bold guarantees, on which he could not — and did not — deliver.
Joe Biden entered the presidency realizing that under-promising and over-delivering was a far smarter approach. To that end, the Democrat began his term vowing to administer 100 million COVID vaccination shots in his first 100 days in office. The new president easily met his target — with more than 40 days to spare.
Many observers argued that Biden’s goal sounded good, but it was relatively modest. A million shots per day would certainly be an improvement over the vaccination rates we saw toward the end of Trump’s term, but the United States could, and almost certainly should, do better. Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) told Fox News in January, “If the Biden administration wants to impress us … double the goal. Say, ‘200 million vaccines in a hundred days.’ I will be impressed.”
Yeah, about that…
President Joe Biden has a new goal: 200 million vaccinations in his first 100 days. If the country keeps up with its current pace of vaccinations that goal will be achieved, according to an NBC News analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention figures.
Given the latest data, the United States would have to complete about 1.9 million vaccinations per day between now and Biden’s 100-day threshold. How realistic is this? Very.
The U.S. broke its previous record for most COVID-19 vaccines administered in a single day, with 3.4 million doses reported on Friday, according to the White House…. At the current seven-day average, which increased to 2.62 million daily doses with the new record on Friday, the U.S. would comfortably reach that goal before his 100th day on April 30. Adding to the good news, while there were concerns that Johnson & Johnson would fall short of its production this month, the White House announced this morning that the company is now set to deliver 11 million doses of its single-shot COVID-19 vaccine next week. To be sure, not all of the news is so encouraging. Infection rates in the United States are just now starting to inch higher, for example, much of the international data is discouraging. But all things considered, taking stock of where things stand, I find myself thinking anew about Dan Crenshaw’s “I will be impressed” quote from January.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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