The people familiar with the matter never got talks about Trump being involved on the ground, he never got a pull, given his alienation from the Presidential Club and the bitter way he left Washington on the inauguration day.
It was a conversation on that January day between former presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama that formed the basis of the vaccination campaign, which began Thursday. Because someone close to the project decided not to join his predecessors at that historic moment, he said he was not asked to be involved in the public announcement.
Trump expressed little interest in joining his predecessors in promoting the vaccine, and the team that organized the PSA did not consider it so likely that the 45th president would participate, and there was little opening for his inclusion.
“He made no signals that he wanted to be included in these types of moments,” an assistant to a former president told CNN.
A number of reasons
There does not appear to be a single reason for Trump’s exclusion, said one person involved in the production, but rather a feeling that his participation was never a real possibility.
A spokesman for the Ad Council, which manufactured the venue, said it was “something that started with the former presidents while President Trump was still in office” when asked why Trump was not included in it.
Trump spokesmen did not respond to questions about why he was not involved.
When he was in office, Trump administration officials discussed how and when he could receive a coronavirus vaccine, including the prospect of doing so on camera. Yet Trump himself did not seem very eager to be seen getting the vaccine, said one person familiar with the situation, although he would suggest its development and take credit for it.
A former Trump administration official said the former president was also very sensitive to his image after being admitted to hospital with Covid and that he is not receptive to photos that could showcase his health and fitness.
There was also discussion at the time of receiving Ivanka Trump in public, an idea that also did not come to fruition. Instead, Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen Pence, were the highest-ranking Trump administration officials ever seen.
In the spot, the former presidents describe what they missed during the pandemic and why they want to be vaccinated. Clinton says he wants to ‘go back to work’ and ‘be able to move around’. Obama says he misses it with his mother-in-law and says he wants to ’embrace and see her on her birthday’. And Bush says he is “very much looking forward to going with the full stadium to Opening Day at Texas Rangers Stadium.”
Former President Jimmy Carter does not speak on camera, but the 96-year-old Democrat says at the venue that he is being vaccinated “because we want this pandemic to end as soon as possible.”
The ad ends with all four former presidents urging Americans to get the vaccine, as images of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, Barack and Michelle Obama, George and Laura Bush and Bill and Hillary Clinton all show their vaccinations.
‘Incredible work’
Trump was asked nearly a year ago whether he would consult with former presidents on dealing with the pandemic, a once common practice for presidents facing large-scale crises.
“I think we’re doing incredible work. So I do not want to disturb them, bother them,” he said during a Coronavirus task force briefing in the White House. “I do not think I’m going to learn much, and you know, I think you can say that there’s probably a natural tendency not to call.”
These portraits were taken back to their original place under Biden, who showed a desire to cultivate a more functional relationship with his predecessors. He told a CNN City Hall earlier this year that he had spoken to all but one of the former presidents – presumably Trump, though he did not name him.
“Everyone, with one exception, picked up the phone and called me,” he told Anderson Cooper.
These types of consultations were mostly absent during Trump’s tenure, who rarely – or ever – spoke to the men who held office before him. The one time the group all got together, for the funeral of former President George HW Bush in the National Cathedral in Washington, it was a somewhat icy reception.
Trump further broke precedent by boycotting Biden’s inauguration and leaving the Joint Base Andrews Washington on the morning of January 20.
He did leave a note for Biden, who described the president as “very generous”, but otherwise he was critical of his successor in statements knocked out of his Florida headquarters.
CNN’s Dan Merica contributed to this report.