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Variety of Executions in U.S. Falls Regardless of Push by Trump Administration

Number of Executions in U.S. Falls Despite Push by Trump Administration

WASHINGTON – Partly because of the impact of the pandemic on the criminal justice system, the number of executions in the United States this year has fallen to its lowest level since 1991 despite the Trump administration reviving the federal death penalty. This emerges from a study published on Wednesday.

The report from the Information Center on the Death Penalty said seven prisoners were executed by states, the lowest number since 1983. The center led the decrease in executions as well as a decrease in new death sentences due to court closings and public health concerns related to the prison back coronavirus, but also cited a long-term trend away from the death penalty in much of the country.

In contrast, the federal government executed 10 prisoners, the highest number of federal civilian executions in a single calendar year in the 20th or 21st century. The surge – the first time the federal government has executed more civilian prisoners than all states combined – was the result of a decision by the Trump administration to end an informal 17-year moratorium on the death penalty for federal crimes.

President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. has announced that he will work to end the federal death penalty. However, the Justice Department has planned three more executions in the first half of January before he takes office.

Robert Dunham, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, which is not categorically opposed to the death penalty but has been critical of its use, said states and the federal government were exposed to the same virus even though the annual numbers were skewed by the pandemic but reacted very much differently.

“At the time when almost every state was prioritizing the safety of its citizens over the execution of prisoners, the federal government decided that it was more important to carry out a rash of executions without full judicial review of these cases in the circumstances and public health endangered, ”he said.

Attorney General William P. Barr announced in July 2019 that the government would execute five men in the coming months, which the courts foiled shortly before the executions began. The Supreme Court then cleared the way for the Trump administration to resume the death penalty in June and allowed any execution.

In her senior year, the government has also allowed additional available execution options such as firing squads or electrocution. The 17-year federal death penalty hiatus was largely due to legal challenges and the unavailability of lethal injections, said Charles Stimson, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. He said the government had simply continued the constitutionally approved tradition of the federal death penalty.

“Ultimately, if we are to uphold the rule of law, you have to make the rule of law work,” said Stimson.

This year, the total number of executions by both states and the federal government fell from 22 in the previous year to 17, according to the report.

Updated

Apr. 16, 2020, 7:32 am ET

The coronavirus has spread to correctional facilities across the country, making the death penalty difficult and killing some death row inmates before states can kill them. The Texas courts have stopped or delayed eight executions, and four more have been delayed in Tennessee by court order or by the governor, the report said. Of the 62 execution dates set for that year, only 17 were carried out.

In contrast to the federal states, the federal government has largely adhered to its schedule despite the dangers of the pandemic.

Two lawyers for Lisa Montgomery, the only woman on federal death row scheduled to be executed, contracted the coronavirus after visiting her client. A judicial statement by a Bureau of Prisons official found that eight members of the team that carried out a federal execution in November at the Terre Haute, Indiana prison complex, where hundreds of cases have been reported, later tested positive for the virus.

Coronavirus forced states to temporarily close their courts, a major factor that resulted in the fewest new death sentences passed in a year since the Supreme Court repealed existing death penalty laws in 1972.

According to a Gallup poll, support for the death penalty in murder cases has been around 55 percent since 2017.

Robert Blecker, professor emeritus at New York Law School, said poll support for the death penalty depends largely on how the question is phrased. Support will rise when the question identifies the circumstances and “atrocities associated with the murder,” he said.

Colorado became the 22nd state to abolish the death penalty this year, and 12 others have not carried out executions in at least a decade, according to the center’s report.

In addition, voters in at least nine major counties elected new prosecutors who had pledged to abandon the death penalty or use it sparingly. These districts make up 12 percent of the current death row population, the report said.

Most likely, the number of executions and death sentences will rise in 2021 and 2022 as the pandemic subsides, said Dunham, the report’s lead author. But those who are to die under the Trump administration will most likely be the final federal executions, at least while Mr Biden is in office.

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Politics

Saudi Arabia hires new crop of lobbyists forward of Biden administration

Saudi Arabia hires new crop of lobbyists ahead of Biden administration

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is on a lobbyist hiring frenzy as President-elect Joe Biden, who has signaled that he will take a tougher stance on the nation, prepares for office.

With the potential for a more tumultuous relationship with the US, Saudi Arabia has hired a few lobbyists who have ties to Republican congressional leaders.

These lobbyists may be more successful working with GOP lawmakers in the new Congress rather than Democrats or Biden’s government. Republicans made gains in the House of Representatives in the 2020 election and could have a slight edge in the Senate if they win one of the seats in two Georgia runoffs scheduled for early next month.

Biden told the Council on Foreign Relations during the Democratic primary last year that he would be reducing US support for Saudi Arabia on key issues.

“I would end US support for the disastrous Saudi-waged war in Yemen and order a reassessment of our relations with Saudi Arabia,” Biden said at the time. “It is time to restore balance, perspective and loyalty to our values ​​in our Middle Eastern relations. President Trump has given Saudi Arabia a dangerous blank check,” he added.

The kingdom is largely ruled by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. NBC News reported in 2018 that he ordered the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which the Crown Prince has denied. The then president stood by Saudi Arabia after Khashoggi’s death. The two nations had signed an arms treaty worth nearly $ 110 billion a year earlier.

The government of Saudi Arabia spent more than $ 30 million on lobbying activities in 2018, according to the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics. So far, spending in 2020 has been $ 5 million.

A representative from the Saudi embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.

One of the youngest employees came from the Larson Shannahan Slifka Group, an Iowa-based public affairs business, which signed a lucrative deal with the Saudi embassy last year. The embassy, ​​also known as the LS2 group, agreed to pay $ 1.5 million for a year in 2019.

New records show that LS2 recently launched the Arena Strategy Group for actions that include “informing the public, government officials and the media about the importance of promoting and fostering strong ties between the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia” be lobbying report says.

The contract began on December 1, weeks after Biden was declared president-elect, and will include government work, the document says. The contract is valued at approximately $ 5,000 per month.

Arena’s government efforts are led by Mark Graul, a Republican political strategist who was Wisconsin State Director for President George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign. He was also Chief of Staff to former Rep. Mark Green, R-Wis., When Green was in Congress. Green later became head of the U.S. agency for international development under Trump and resigned earlier this year.

Graul did not return a request for comment.

The Saudi Arabian DC embassy recently suspended Off Hill Strategies for the period that spans the final leg of the election through the transition period.

The company is a boutique lobbying shop founded by Tripp Baird, who was once director of government relations for the conservative organization Heritage Action for America. The contract began in late October, while Biden was ahead of Trump in almost all national polls. It is also advised that the $ 25,000-per-month agreement runs until January 18, two days before Biden is due to be inaugurated.

The main focus of Off Hill’s lobbying work, according to the treaty, is “to support the public relations work of the embassy congress and to further develop bilateral relations between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United States of America”. A separate report on lobbying disclosure shows that Off Hill helped Saudi Arabia “gather information about year-end omnibus legislation”.

Baird has not returned a request for comment.

In another case, the Saudis turned to a leading public relations firm to help develop an expensive urban development designed to bolster the country’s growing international ambitions.

According to a file, a senior PR juggernaut Edelman emailed a massive Saudi land development leader named Neom to clarify their agreement. Jere Sullivan, the company’s vice chairman for global public affairs, told Neom that Edelman will provide strategic advice, media relations, stakeholder identification and engagement, and content development.

The agreement is set to run from mid-November to February, according to the email, and is expected to cost up to $ 75,000 per month.

According to the Edelman Foreign Lobbying Disclosure Report, Neom is “100% owned by the Public Investment Fund (PIF), a sovereign property of the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As such, its activities are monitored, directed, controlled, financed and funded subsidized by the PIF. “

The Wall Street Journal reported last year that the Neom project is supported by MBS and the project is valued at $ 500 billion for the Saudi city-state. The Journal reported at the time that by 2030, MBS hopes this newly developed region will be one of the global technology centers. The Saudi leadership believes it could replace the US technology center Silicon Valley. The projected schedule for completion coincides with Biden’s first term as president and would extend beyond 2024.

Neom’s website states that it is “a region in northwestern Saudi Arabia on the Red Sea to be built from the ground up as a living laboratory,” and that it “will offer a multitude of unique development opportunities as its strategic Red Sea coastal location is notable for its proximity to international markets and trade routes. “

The group expects the project to be completed in the next seven to ten years.

Sullivan declined to comment.

Categories
Health

Trump Administration Plans a Rushed Effort to Encourage People to Be Vaccinated

Trump Administration Plans a Rushed Effort to Encourage Americans to Be Vaccinated

“There’s a whip effect,” said Joel White, a Republican strategist focused on health policy. “If Trump makes a big stink out there about people getting the vaccine and needing it, I could see Democrats being turned off – and blacks and Latinos in particular. But if he doesn’t do anything, Trump supporters may not be vaccinated because they would see that as a sign. “

Since the president had Covid-19 he should technically be at the back of the line of people waiting to be shot, but the sight of him being injected could be useful. At the White House, officials said it “certainly will be considered” for Mr Trump to take the vaccine publicly, although they stated that it might not affect public opinion as people know he has recovered. (Experts say those who survived Covid-19 may be at risk of re-infection and could benefit from vaccination.)

Dr. For his part, Fauci intends to “be publicly vaccinated,” he said on Friday, “as soon as the vaccine is available to me” in order to increase public support. Vice President Mike Pence’s advisors are considering when and how he will be vaccinated, and whether he would do so publicly.

Mr Trump’s three presidential predecessors – Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton – have all announced that they are ready to be vaccinated on camera. In 2009, Mr. Obama and his wife, Michelle, put on a public show getting vaccinated against the H1N1 influenza virus and waiting for their turn to wait for the children to get the vaccine.

“People need to understand that this vaccine is safe,” Obama said at the time. A photo was posted on the White House website of him rolling up his sleeve to be shot.

Mr. Biden is already using his platform to encourage Americans to get vaccinated.

“I want to make it clear to the public: This is what you should trust,” he said Friday at an event in Wilmington, Del. “There is no political influence. These are top notch scientists who take the time to look at all of the elements that need to be considered. Scientific integrity has led us to this point. “

Dr. David A. Kessler, a former Food and Drug Administration commissioner who advises the president-elect on the pandemic, said in an interview that the Biden team is working with medical organizations and other groups to find “the most creative.” transparent and effective ways to educate the public, including using a number of respected voices – both local and national.

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Politics

In Attempting for a Numerous Administration, Biden Finds One Group’s Acquire is One other’s Loss

In Trying for a Diverse Administration, Biden Finds One Group’s Gain is Another’s Loss

WASHINGTON – The NAACP chief had a blunt warning for President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. when Mr Biden met with civil rights leaders in Wilmington this week.

The nomination of Tom Vilsack, a former Agriculture Secretary in the Obama administration, to re-head the department would anger black farmers and threaten Democratic hopes of winning two runoffs in the Georgia Senate, Derrick Johnson told Biden.

“Former Secretary Vilsack could have a catastrophic impact on Georgia voters,” Johnson warned, according to an audio recording of the meeting received from The Intercept. Mr Johnson said Mr Vilsack’s sudden dismissal of a popular black department official in 2010 was still too raw for many black farmers, despite Mr Vilsack’s subsequent apology and offer to reinstate them.

Mr. Biden immediately ignored the warning. Within hours, his decision to appoint Mr. Vilsack to head the Department of Agriculture had been leaked and angered the very activists he had just met.

The episode was just part of a concerted campaign by activists demanding that the president-elect keep his promise that his government “will look like America.” At their meeting, Mr. Johnson and the group also asked Mr. Biden to appoint a black attorney general and to designate a White House citizen a “Tsar.”

The pressure is on the Democratic-elected president, even if his efforts to ensure ethnic and gender diversity are well beyond those of President Trump, who did not prioritize diversity and often chose his top officials for what they looked like. And it comes from all sides.

When Mr. Biden nominated the first black man to run the Pentagon this week, women cried badly. LGBTQ advocates are disappointed that Mr Biden has not yet appointed a prominent member of their ward to his cabinet. Latino and Asian groups fish for some of the same jobs.

Allies of the president-elect discover that he has already made history. In addition to appointing retired General Lloyd J. Austin III as the first black Secretary of Defense, he has selected a Cuban immigrant to head the Department of Homeland Security, the first female Treasury Secretary, a black woman in Housing and Urban Development, and the son of Mexican immigrants as secretary for health and human services.

But the introduction of Mr. Biden’s cabinet and the White House picks has created fear among many elements of the party. While some say he appears to be handicapped by pressure groups, others point out that his earliest decisions included four white men who are close confidants to serve as chief of staff, secretary of state, national security advisor, and his top political adviser, leading the way Leaves impression that Mr. Biden planned to rely on the same cadre of aides he had had for years.

“Additional dismay,” said a Washington advocacy chairman about Mr. Biden’s initial decisions.

Glynda C. Carr, president of Higher Heights for America, a political action committee dedicated to the election of progressive black women, said it was a feeling of defeat that Mr Biden, as a group, had not given black women key jobs in his cabinet had hoped.

Susan Rice, a black woman who was the United Nations Ambassador and National Security Advisor to the Obama administration, was considered a candidate for Secretary of State. Instead, she will become director of Mr. Biden’s Home Affairs Council, a position that does not require Senate endorsement. Ohio representative Marcia L. Fudge, another black woman, was nominated as Secretary of Agriculture for which she and her allies had been pushing for Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

Both government and agricultural jobs went to white men instead.

“For me, I would certainly want Susan Rice to be on the team instead of not on the team,” Ms. Carr said, but it was “disappointing” to see Ms. Rice in a position that wasn’t cabinet level. “We have to keep pushing,” she added.

Women’s groups were also disappointed with Mr. Biden’s decision to select General Austin as Secretary of Defense to replace Michèle Flournoy, a long-time senior Pentagon official who has been the leading candidate for the job for months.

It didn’t help Mr Biden’s case with women that he also selected Xavier Becerra, California’s attorney general, as secretary for health and human resources to New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, who was selected as the likely candidate for the job just days before she was was passed over.

General Austin’s election didn’t convince civil rights activists like Rev. Al Sharpton, either, who firmly believes the need for a black attorney general, or at least someone with a background in voting rights enforcement.

In an interview following his meeting with Mr Biden, Mr Sharpton was open about when he would feel satisfied that the president-elect had kept his promise of diversity.

“If we can get a real attorney general with a credible background on civil rights and voting enforcement,” he said. “If we get a credible person with a real background in work and education I would be ready to say that I am ready to accept some setbacks or setbacks” in other positions.

Mr Sharpton was also clear about whom he would not accept. He said black activists would not support a position for Rahm Emanuel, the former chief of staff to President Barack Obama, whose heir as mayor of Chicago he convicted of Emanuel’s handling of the 2014 murder of Laquan McDonald, a black teenager, a police officer.

Other activists are equally determined to prevent the president-elect from nominating anyone they consider too conservative and shy to face racial injustices, or who are too closely associated with the corporate world.

That month, a group of over 70 environmental groups wrote to the Biden transition team calling on the president-elect not to appoint Mary Nichols, California’s climate change regulator and one of the country’s most experienced climate change leaders, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency .

“We would like to draw your attention to Ms. Nichols’ dire track record in combating environmental racism,” the groups wrote, saying she promoted California’s cap and trade program to reduce greenhouse gases at the expense of local pollutants that are disproportionately affected Minority communities.

The transition of the president

Updated

Apr. 11, 2020, 9:07 am ET

People on the verge of transition say Ms. Nichols may lose her job to Heather McTeer Toney, an EPA regional administrator in the Obama administration who is a top choice of liberal activists and would be the second black woman to do so directs the agency.

Adam Green, founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said liberal organizations were largely satisfied with some of Mr. Biden’s recommendations, including Ron Klain, one of his longtime advisers, as chief of staff and Janet L. Yellen, a former Federal Reserve chairman, treasury secretary to be.

But he said Mr. Biden had not selected a progressive movement champion, adding, “Those at the top of the spear are not in the greatest positions yet.”

And candidates like Mr Vilsack, who Mr Green has been accused of having too many connections with large agricultural companies, are a disappointment, he said.

“Agriculture offers so many opportunities, especially if we want to make a profit in the Midwest,” he said. But that would require a secretary willing to “fight big farming for family farmers”.

As Mr. Biden ponders his election as Secretary of the Interior, a coalition of Democrats, Native Americans, Liberal activists and Hollywood celebrities are pushing him to replace Senator Tom Udall, Democrat of New Mexico, with Representative Deb Haaland of New Mexico, an Indian woman appoint and a longtime friend of Mr. Biden.

On Thursday evening a group of liberal activists, including the Sunrise Movement, one of the best-known groups on the left, wrote to white Mr Udall asking him to get out of the running for a job his father Stewart L. Udall had among the Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.

“It would not be right for two Udalls to head the Home Office, charged with administering public land, natural resources, and the nation’s tribal trust responsibilities in front of a single Native American,” they wrote.

On Capitol Hill, progressive Democratic lawmakers like New York City Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez reserve judgment on Mr Biden’s decisions.

“I think one of the things I look for when I see all of these tips put together is what is the agenda?” she told reporters.

During his meeting with the activists, Mr Biden resisted the idea that his nominations suggest that he is not pursuing a progressive agenda.

“I don’t have a stamp on my head that says ‘I’m progressive and I’m AOC,'” said Mr Biden, referring to Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. “But I have more records of how you get things done in the United States Congress than anyone else you know.”

The comments reflect what people familiar with Mr. Biden’s thinking are saying is his growing frustration with the public and private print campaigns.

However, promises to stakeholders during his campaign are not forgotten.

Alphonso David, president of the human rights campaign, a group devoted to advancing the interests of the LGBTQ community, said Mr Biden assured him months ago that an LGBTQ person would be appointed to a cabinet-level position that was confirmed by the Senate needs – something that never happened.

“This is an important barrier to breaking. We need to make sure that all communities are represented, ”said David. Like other activists, Mr David was reluctant to judge Mr Biden until he had finished selecting his cabinet.

“It’s too early to say,” he said. But he added a warning that Mr Biden has heard all too often over the past few days.

“If we don’t have the variety of representation that Joe Biden has promised and that we are looking for,” he said, “there will be a big disappointment.”

Yet the President-elect’s defenders are equally direct.

“He selected the first woman and the first black vice president. First Minister of Finance. First Black Secretary of Defense, ”said Philippe Reines, a veteran Democratic agent and former top adviser to Hillary Clinton. “But if you can’t trust Joe Biden to keep doing the right thing and trying to choose the cabinet, you should do what he did: run for the presidency and win.”

Luke Broadwater, Coral Davenport, Lisa Friedman and Katie Glueck contributed to the coverage.

Categories
Health

Trump Administration Handed on Probability to Safe Extra of Pfizer Vaccine

Trump Administration Passed on Chance to Secure More of Pfizer Vaccine

michael barbaro

Hey, it’s Michael. We know that 2020 has been a difficult year. But it’s also been a year of small victories, personal milestones, and moments of joy. If something good happened to you, we want to hear about it. So write us an email or better yet, send us a voice memo to thedaily@nytimes.com— that’s thedaily@nytimes.com— and tell us your story of good news this year, large or small. And thank you. From The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily.

[music]

Today: From the start of the pandemic, the Trump administration said it was committed to ordering and stockpiling enough vaccine to end the pandemic as quickly as possible. But new reporting from The Times raises questions about whether it has actually done that. I spoke with my colleague, Sharon LaFraniere.

It’s Thursday, December 10.

So Sharon, tell me about this tip that you got.

sharon lafraniere

So it was on Saturday. I think I was playing bridge on my phone with the robots, which is how we spend Saturday nights now, right?

michael barbaro

Right.

sharon lafraniere

And I got a call from another New York Times reporter, mutual friend of ours, saying, I have heard this about Pfizer. You need to call this guy. Here’s his name. Here’s his number. Tell him you know me. And so I called the guy, and basically the tip was that the administration had muffed a chance to buy more of Pfizer’s vaccine, and now it couldn’t get it until, like, the middle of next year.

michael barbaro

Hm, that’s a very big tip.

sharon lafraniere

It’s a big tip because Pfizer’s vaccine has been shown to be 95 percent effective, and it’s the first one out of the gate, right? The Brits are already inoculating people with it. The Americans want it. And if we somehow missed out a chance to get twice as many doses as we had locked in, that would be a big deal.

michael barbaro

And I wonder what you thought when you heard this tip. I mean, it’s one of those things you hear, you’re sort of like, wait, could that be right?

sharon lafraniere

My reaction was, if this is right, it’s a big story.

michael barbaro

Mhm. And so what did you do?

sharon lafraniere

So I called my editors and my colleagues and said, we need to chase this as hard as we can. And so all Sunday we were calling everybody, and we’re getting like, sorry, can’t help you on this. Or, I never heard about this. Or, try some other people. And then finally on Monday afternoon, early Monday afternoon, we’re able to confirm it, that in fact Pfizer had tried to get the US government to lock in a hundred million extra doses but the government had turned them down.

[music]michael barbaro

So Sharon, what did you find out was the thinking behind this decision— which feels like a real head-scratcher on paper— not buying extra doses of a very effective vaccine from Pfizer?

sharon lafraniere

So to answer that, we really have to go back to the start of the administration’s whole crash program to develop vaccines, all the way back to March when it starts this initiative called Operation Warp Speed and comes up with a strategy to develop vaccines in record-breaking time.

michael barbaro

Right.

sharon lafraniere

So the initial strategy was that the government would pick three different technologies. And each technology would be pursued by a pair of companies, so six companies all together— six horses. They actually called them horses. And the idea of having a pair of companies is if one company fails, then you’ve still got one company standing to go after that technology. But nobody had any idea which of those vaccine technologies would work. So the government’s strategy was, we’ll back all six, and we’re going to pay this money even before we know whether the vaccines work or not.

But Pfizer was alone among the group in saying, we don’t want your money. And there’s really three reasons for that. So the C.E.O., Albert Bourla, told us, number one, it doesn’t need the money. Number two, it doesn’t want the government oversight. I mean, he actually felt that having government oversight over the vaccine project would not speed them up but it would slow them down. And number three, he was fearful about getting involved in the whole political drama that was starting to unfold with the White House pressuring the health agencies to act in one way or another. He just wanted to stay out of the political fray. And he thought if he takes the money, the money will come with strings attached, and he doesn’t want to be dragged into this.

michael barbaro

Got it. So what exactly is the arrangement with Pfizer? Because it sounds very different from the other five. What’s the eventual terms of it?

sharon lafraniere

So the contract called for Pfizer to deliver a hundred million doses to the U.S. government at a cost of $19.50 per dose by the end of the first quarter of 2021, but the U.S. government didn’t pay any money up front. In other words, only if this vaccine clears all the hurdles, gets approved by the F.D.A., and Pfizer’s able to manufacture it— only in that case will the US government have to actually pay the bill.

michael barbaro

Hm. So in some ways, this arrangement with Pfizer is better for the U.S. government than its arrangement with the five other companies. Doesn’t have to put any money down, and it seems like Pfizer is assuming most, if not all, of the risk.

sharon lafraniere

Exactly.

michael barbaro

This is a very good deal if you’re the United States government.

sharon lafraniere

Right. You get to lock in a hundred million doses, and you don’t have to pay up front.

michael barbaro

And so the U.S. takes that deal.

sharon lafraniere

Right.

michael barbaro

And when exactly was this?

sharon lafraniere

So the contract is signed in late July. But even at that time, we’re told, Pfizer is asking Operation Warp Speed officials, don’t you want more? Like, don’t you want to lock in an extra 100 million doses or 200 million doses? Because you don’t have to pay for them unless it works. And the answer was, no, we’re hedging our bets. We’ve got six candidates here. We’re not playing favorites among any of them. And Pfizer’s saying basically, yeah, but with us, it’s a free bet. But the government is saying, no, we’re sticking with our strategy. They don’t want to bet too heavily on any one of the six, even if the bet is free.

michael barbaro

And Sharon, as the U.S. government is turning down this offer from Pfizer, what does it actually know about Pfizer’s vaccine and how effective it may actually be?

sharon lafraniere

Well, remember this is July, and at this point, the government really doesn’t know very much, if anything, about which of these vaccines is going to work. But as time went on, it looks like suddenly that Pfizer is going to be the first over the finish line. But the problem is, a lot of other countries were also getting interested in Pfizer’s vaccine. They have a vaccine that is attracting so much attention that their executives are getting messages over LinkedIn from other countries, like, we want some. Can we lock this in?

And in early October, the U.S. government also gets interested in some extra doses and talks resume. But it’s no longer the same situation, because while the U.S. was hesitating, other countries were moving in. So in October, they don’t actually come to any agreement on a second contract because the U.S. is like, we need it sooner than it sounds like you’re delivering it. Or, you’re not promising us that we’re going to get it in time. Anyway, the talks are inconclusive. And then comes the big day of November 8.

archived recording

This is CNN breaking news. Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer reportedly making an enormous breakthrough with its Covid-19 vaccine, announcing today—

sharon lafraniere

Pfizer gets the interim results of its clinical trials.

archived recording

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer just announced moments ago that its coronavirus vaccine is 95 percent effective. 95 percent effective— 95 percent effective, and they say with no serious side effects.

sharon lafraniere

And they are amazing.

archived recording

Pfizer’s C.E.O. is calling it, quote, “the greatest medical advancement in the last 100 years.” We will speak with—

michael barbaro

I remember that, Sharon. The results were stunning. And it suggested that this vaccine was going to be a blockbuster. But the U.S. still hasn’t ordered extra doses at this point?

sharon lafraniere

Right. And according to Scott Gottlieb, who is a member of Pfizer’s board and the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, Pfizer was still offering— after the results came out— more doses, but the U.S. did not seal a deal then.

michael barbaro

Hm. So the Trump administration, the U.S. government, having missed this first chance back in July to lock in this deal for extra doses of this vaccine at no cost, is then told in October, and it sounds like even in November, we can’t offer you the exact same timeline. I mean, because months have gone by here. We’ve gotten other orders. And so as a result, despite how promising this vaccine turns out to be, the U.S. still decides not to order more. I just want to be clear.

sharon lafraniere

That seems to be the situation, yes. And then on November 11, which is basically two days after Pfizer has announced these amazing results, it announces that it has a deal to sell 200 million doses to the European Union. That was a contract that had been in negotiation for weeks and weeks. Nonetheless, the European Union has locked in 200 million doses, and the U.S. has locked in a hundred million doses.

michael barbaro

So it very much looks like the European Union got 200 million doses of the vaccine that could have gone to the United States if the United States had wanted them.

sharon lafraniere

Yes, that’s what it looks like.

michael barbaro

Sharon, do we know who exactly in the U.S. government made this decision repeatedly not to buy these vaccines?

sharon lafraniere

We’re not sure. We know that Pfizer was dealing with the guy who is the scientific leader of Operation Warp Speed. His name is Dr. Moncef Slaoui. But whether Dr. Slaoui was the one who was the final decision-maker or it was Alex Azar, the Health and Human Services secretary, or whether the White House was involved or not, we really don’t know now.

michael barbaro

So Sharon, if you could summarize it, what are the consequences of how the U.S. has approached these offers from Pfizer?

sharon lafraniere

So the consequence is that the U.S. might have to wait longer for as much supply of the Pfizer vaccine as it wants and needs. Because the state of play is that Pfizer is right on the brink of getting emergency approval from the Food and Drug Administration. It’s going to be the first vaccine to get that in the U.S. And the US government has locked in a commitment for a hundred million doses, enough to cover 50 million people, and it wants more. But it looks very unlikely that it can get it as soon as it wants it.

michael barbaro

So how much time have we lost here when it comes to the Pfizer vaccine orders that we never placed?

sharon lafraniere

So what we’re being told is that the U.S. government has now asked Pfizer for a hundred million doses, and they want them starting in March. But Pfizer is saying, sorry, we cannot guarantee you these doses until June. So if that’s how it all plays out, the way it’s looking now, then we would have lost three months.

michael barbaro

Three months. Three months of not having tens of millions of doses that the U.S. could have had.

sharon lafraniere

If it works out that way, that would be three months in which the U.S. is waiting for a Pfizer vaccine because it didn’t lock in more doses earlier.

[music]michael barbaro

We’ll be right back.

Sharon, having made this decision, which in retrospect feels like a pretty strange and bad decision, what does the United States now do to correct for this? Could we just beg Pfizer to make extra doses for us?

sharon lafraniere

No, because it’s not that Pfizer is not willing to make more doses for Americans. It’s making every dose that it can possibly make right now. It doesn’t have empty factories somewhere where it can go in and just flip on the lights and suddenly there’s lots more doses. It has legal commitments to other countries to provide supply. And those countries want it too. It’s not a matter of begging Pfizer to make more. If they had more to give the Americans, they would give it to them. Pfizer has a very big motivation to put the U.S. first, because Pfizer, number one, it’s an American company.

michael barbaro

Right.

sharon lafraniere

Number two, most of its customers are in the U.S. They do not want to be in this situation where their customers think, what, you’re making deals to save the lives of Europeans and you’re leaving Americans here waiting for lifesaving vaccines? They don’t want a consumer backlash.

michael barbaro

Could the U.S.— and here I’m just kind of exhausting American curiosity. Could the U.S. kind of forcefully take vaccine from Pfizer if it wanted to be extremely nationalistic and say, nobody gets doses outside the U.S. before we get doses?

sharon lafraniere

I mean, that seems highly unlikely that the U.S. government is going to move into Pfizer’s factories and rip up all its contracts and commandeer its doses. President Trump signed an executive order this week saying that Americans would get vaccine supplies first, but it seems pretty meaningless. It’s hard to imagine what the government could do to force Pfizer to redirect vaccine that it’s committed to other countries to Americans. I mean, some people have speculated, maybe could Pfizer team up with another pharmaceutical company like Merck? And then could there be some kind of partnership there that would allow it to increase production? But it cannot itself, now, just turn on a dime and create more production.

michael barbaro

OK, so with no great options for securing more doses from Pfizer right away, what can the U.S. do instead? How do we make up for those missing doses? I have to imagine the answer lies with these other companies that the U.S. has invested in.

sharon lafraniere

Exactly. Moderna is right behind Pfizer with a very similar vaccine that is proven to be equally effective. It’s likely to win emergency approval from the F.D.A. maybe a week after Pfizer does later this month. It too has committed to provide the U.S. with a hundred million doses. Like Pfizer, it has to deliver those doses by the end of the first quarter of next year. It’s easier to store than Pfizer’s, and it might be easier to ship. It’s a much smaller company than Pfizer, right? It spent 10 years without bringing a product successfully to market, but it’s done extremely well with this vaccine. So there’s the Moderna option.

michael barbaro

So if I’m keeping count correctly, 50 million Americans would be inoculated through Pfizer’s vaccine.

sharon lafraniere

Right.

michael barbaro

50 million Americans would be inoculated through Moderna’s vaccine. That still leaves a lot of Americans. So what about these other companies?

sharon lafraniere

So of the other four companies, two of them are sort of off the table right now because they haven’t even started their phase 3 clinical trials. Another one, AstraZeneca, which has developed its vaccine with University of Oxford researchers, is about halfway enrolled in its clinical trial here. And there are some questions about its data, its transparency. It’s had somewhat rocky relations with the F.D.A. And its early results have shown basically that for the full two-dose regime, it was shown to be about 62 percent effective. So you have to ask yourself, are Americans going to want to take a vaccine that’s 62 percent effective when they have two vaccines out there that are 95 percent effective?

michael barbaro

Right. And I think we all know the answer to that is probably no, not really. So it’s really kind of “Moderna and Pfizer or bust” for the moment.

sharon lafraniere

Well, there’s also Johnson & Johnson, and it expects to have clinical trial results early next year. But we don’t know if that vaccine worked or not. If it works, that gives us a third. But at the moment, the U.S. government has got, as you said, commitments for 200 million doses, which will cover a hundred million Americans. And the question is, what is going to happen at the end of March? Are we going to fall off some kind of vaccine cliff here? Or, is there going to be an interval in which people are not being vaccinated? Or, are there going to be enough doses to fill in the gap?

michael barbaro

Mhm. So what happens if we reach and go over a vaccine cliff?

sharon lafraniere

So the worst case scenario is that there is an interval in which Americans are waiting and that there’s some sort of break in the inoculation program. But we don’t know that’s true. We don’t know for sure that that’s going to happen. Moderna could fill in some of the gap. And at the moment, all we can say is that it kind of raises the anxiety level that we have two successful vaccines, and so far, we have not locked in enough doses to cover more than a hundred million Americans.

michael barbaro

Right. So no matter how you slice it, the chances of us going over a vaccine cliff, of suddenly having some period of some unknown duration where Americans are not being inoculated, which is not what we want, the chances of that are higher— correct me if I’m wrong— because the United States did not order more of these doses from Pfizer. Is that right?

sharon lafraniere

I think that’s right. The administration says that is not going to happen. We’re not going over this cliff. That there’s going to be enough vaccine for everybody, that there are more supplies coming in, that there are negotiations going all the time. That they feel confident that they are going to have enough vaccine doses for every single American who wants it by spring or the middle of next year.

michael barbaro

Mhm. But the government can’t assure that.

sharon lafraniere

Not yet.

michael barbaro

Sharon, it feels like the consequence of what the U.S. government, of what the Trump administration has done here, is time. You said that the decision-making here may have delayed this acquisition of vaccines by something like three months. Time is a very precious resource in this pandemic. Time is how we measure the number of people who get exposed to this virus, who get infected by it, who get killed by it. And so every single day matters. And so three months, 90 days, that really matters, right? It means more people are likely to get this virus and potentially to die from it.

sharon lafraniere

I mean, I really, really hope that’s not so. Well, the whole story is such a roller coaster, right? We get these amazing results from Pfizer and Moderna, and everybody is just ecstatic. And then we learn, whoa, we don’t have enough. And are we going to get enough? And everybody would feel much more comfortable if we had all these doses in the bank.

michael barbaro

Mhm. I mean, what makes this feel especially confounding is that vaccines have been the U.S. government’s approach to this pandemic, right? I mean, the Trump administration has not issued national lockdowns. It has not issued a national mask mandate. What it has said is that what will get us out of this pandemic is a vaccine. We are going all in on vaccines. It’s pretty much our only solution to the pandemic. So to have not done everything conceivably possible to get as many doses of the vaccine as we could, knowing that this is our solution, just becomes extremely hard to understand or explain.

sharon lafraniere

So in hindsight, some administration officials will say privately they wish that they had locked in more doses earlier. That this has exposed a kind of flaw in their strategy. And that now they’re scrambling to figure out how can they compensate for it. And that is weighing heavily on them.

michael barbaro

Sharon, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

sharon lafraniere

Thank you, Michael.

[music]michael barbaro

On Wednesday afternoon, Canada became the latest country to approve Pfizer’s vaccine, meaning that its citizens may start to receive it beginning next week. A few hours later, The Times reported that the United States had passed a grim new milestone on Wednesday— 3,000 deaths from the coronavirus in a single day. We’ll be right back.

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Here’s what else you need to know today:

archived recording

No company should have this much unchecked power over our personal information and our social interactions.

michael barbaro

In a lawsuit filed on Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission and attorneys general from 48 states called for breaking up Facebook.

archived recording

And that’s why we are taking action today and standing up for the millions of consumers and many small businesses that have been harmed by Facebook’s illegal behavior.

michael barbaro

The lawsuit accused the company of purchasing its rivals, including Instagram and WhatsApp, in order to eliminate potential competition and in the process, acting as an unlawful monopoly. In response, Facebook said that it would vigorously defend itself during what is expected to be a long and expensive legal battle.

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That’s it for The Daily. I’m Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.