Brian Williams mocks Geraldo Rivera suggestion to name COVID-19 vaccine after Trump

MSNBC’s Brian Williams poked fun Friday at Fox News personality Geraldo Rivera’s suggestion that the COVID-19 vaccine should be named after President Trump to honor him.

“It’s possible we just don’t give the president enough credit for his FDR-like devotion to tackling this virus,” Williams said sarcastically during his show, “The 11th Hour,” on Friday night.

“His laserlike focus, his daily devotion, the sympathy he’s forever expressing to the families of the quarter-million dead,” Williams continued. “Even the way the president lectures us in that way to please wear a mask and stop the spread. And he’s always advocated injections. Geraldo may be on to something.”

Williams continued his monologue, mocking the success of Trump’s various self-promotional side businesses, saying, “What Trump Steaks did for the hungry, what Trump Water did for the thirsty in our nation, what Trump University did to lift up the uneducated in our country — well, along comes Trump the vaccine. Possibilities, I think you’ll agree, are endless. That is our broadcast for this Friday night.”

The comments come after Trump took credit for Pfizer’s announcement that its COVID-19 vaccine trial was a success. Rivera commended the president’s efforts, referring to Trump as the “prime architect of Operation Warp Speed,” the federal government’s program to develop and distribute a vaccine in record time.

“I had an idea … with the world so divided and everyone telling me, ‘He’s gotta give up’ and ‘Time to leave’ … why not name the vaccine ‘the Trump?'” Rivera said while on the air Friday. “You know, make it like ‘Have you got your Trump yet?'”

Fox’s Geraldo Rivera says we should honor Trump by naming the COVID-19 vaccine “Trump”, and that Trump’s name could eventually become a generic term for vaccines. pic.twitter.com/xoO1A37qIZ

— Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) November 20, 2020