'I was hesitant when Trump was controlling the CDC': MSNBC host Joy Reid admits she used to be skeptical of COVID vaccine, but is happy with it now Biden is in charge as she responds to Nikki Minaj feud
MSNBC host Joy Reid admitted she was 'hesitant' of the COVID-19 vaccine, but has since changed course as she responded to singer Nicki Minaj's vaccine hesitancy claims.
Reid - whose parent company NBC Universal requires vaccination for all in-office employees like herself - admitted on her show Thursday that she was hesitant to take the COVID-19 vaccine under the Trump administration.
'Listen, I understand the hesitancy,' she said as she spoke to Michael Dyson on her show Reid Out about Minaj, who she's been feuding with all week.
'I was hesitant when Donald Trump was out there controlling the CDC and controlling the FDA and manipulating them and making them put out falsehoods. Anybody rational was hesitant.'
MSNBC's Joy Reid admitted she used to be 'hesitant' toward the COVID-19 vaccine during the Trump administration. Since Biden took office, she has been pro-vaccinate and has since been vaccinated. Her parent company, NBC Universal, requires all in-office staff members to be vaccinated
Singer Nicki Minaj recently claimed her cousin's friend who got the vaccine in Trinidad experienced swollen testicles
Reid has since changed course since Biden took office and has been pushing the vaccine, especially among the black community, which has the lowest vaccination rate in the US.
'But the reality is now what I really fear is more masses of people dying; 666,000 people have died. And, disproportionately, they look like you and me, Michael,' she said.
The US has 63 per cent of its population vaccinated, with the Asian-American community being the highest at 68 per cent. Only 43 per cent of blacks are vaccinated, trailing behind whites (62 per cent) and Hispanics (48 per cent).
Reid agreed with Dyson when he applauded Minaj for encouraging those with vaccine hesitancy to study up on the vaccine's effectiveness on her show on Thursday.
Earlier, Reid blasted Minaj for using her 22 million followers to spread false information about the vaccine.
The hip-hop star had claimed her cousin's friend in Trinidad got the vaccine and experienced swollen testicles as a result, which lead to republican Tucker Carlson and others to back the anti-vaccine view Minaj was supposedly espousing.
Reid was angered by Minaj's supposed misuse of her platform.
Reid slammed Super Bass singer for using her platform of 22million to dissuade the Black community from getting the vaccine, the most unvaccinated group in the US at only 43 per cent. The Asian-American population is the highest at 68 per cent
'You have a platform, sister, that is 22 million followers, OK? I have two million followers. You have 22 million followers on Twitter,' Reid said of Minaj on her show during a discussion about vaccine mandates.
'For you to use your platform to encourage our community to not protect themselves and save their lives, my God sister, you can do better than that!'
In response, Minaj pulled out an old Tweet from last September when Reid herself was hesitant about the vaccine and called out Reid for being 'so thirsty to down another black woman.'
The US has a total of 63 per cent of its population vaccinated
Journalist Drew Holden, a self-professed 'keeper of receipts,' called Reid out on Twitter, writing: 'She's trending so brief thread chronically the time that @JoyAnnReid used her platform to push unfounded vaccine fears because she didn't like the guy in the Oval Office.'
In previous tweets, Reid did question the validity of the vaccine, tweeting: 'I mean, will anyone...anyone at all...ever fully trust the @CDCgov again? And who on God's earth would trust a vaccine approved by the @US_FDA?? How do you get a vaccine distributed after this broken, Trumpist nonsense has infected everything? Even if Biden wins?'
Now Reid's feed is full of pro-vaccine commentary.
Journalist Drew Holden (left) slammed Reid for her response toward Minaj after she used to be vaccine-hesitant herself. Columnist Jason Whitlock (right) recently called her a 'phony' and a 'sell out' after claiming she does whatever the Democrats tell her to do for a paycheck
Conservative columnist Jason Whitlock also joined in on Reid's switch over by calling her a 'phony' and a 'sell out.'
'She’s phony,' Whitlock said of Reid during a recent episode of his 'Fearless' podcast per Fox News.
'These people don’t stand for nothing…go look at the old stuff she wrote on her blog about what she really thinks and then go compare it to what she says on MSNBC. Then go look at the paycheck they gave her to say that stuff she don’t believe,' he said.
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