Trump: U.S. 'probably' would've never had COVID-19 vaccine without him

Former President Donald Trump wants to make sure he gets his due credit.

Trump said late Wednesday that without him, Americans "probably" wouldn't have ever come up with a COVID-19 vaccine.

“I hope everyone remembers when they’re getting the COVID-19 (often referred to as the China Virus) Vaccine, that if I wasn’t President, you wouldn’t be getting that beautiful ‘shot’ for 5 years, at best, and probably wouldn’t be getting it at all,” Trump said in a statement. "I hope everyone remembers."

Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine, the first in the U.S., was approved by the Food and Drug Administration for emergency use authorization (EUA) on Dec. 11.

The FDA on Dec. 18 also approved Moderna's EUA request for emergency-use approval. Both have said their data showed their vaccine was 95% effective in its late-stage clinical trial. One in four Americans has now been inoculated. 

The Moderna vaccine was developed in conjunction with the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed. 

OWS was created in April 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was hitting its first peak. 

On May 15, 2020, Trump officially announced the public-private partnership, which coordinated the Health and Human Services with the National Institutes of Health.  The program was at first funded with $10 billion, but that was raised to about $18 billion by October 2020.

In a speech at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference, Trump said he pushed the FDA for fast but safe emergency approval and purchase vaccines ahead of their approval so that the U.S. could get a fast start on innoculations.