Widow looking for answers after Quebec man dies in Texas Ironman competition
The widow of a Quebec man who died competing in an Ironman competition is looking for answers.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump is slamming politicians who refuse to say whether they have received COVID-19 booster shots as "gutless."
"You gotta say it. Whether you had it or not, say it," Trump said in an interview that aired Tuesday night on the conservative One America News Network.
Trump, who was booed last month by supporters after revealing he had gotten a booster shot, has become increasingly vocal in calling out those who have questioned the vaccines' efficacy and safety. It's a change in posture for Trump as he eyes another run for the White House and faces potential competition from a long list of possible Republican challengers.
Even though the vaccines were developed during the Trump administration, they remain deeply unpopular with large segments of the Republican base, fueled in part by rampant disinformation. Trump, while in office, consistently downplayed the risk posed by COVID-19 and he received his vaccine privately, even as other members of his administration were inoculated in public to help boost confidence in the shots.
"Well, I've taken it. I've had the booster," Trump said in the interview. "I watched a couple of politicians be interviewed and one of the questions was, `Did you get the booster?' .... And they, `Oh, oh,' they're answering it -- like in other words, the answer is `Yes,' but they don't want to say it. Because they're gutless."
Trump did not name names, and his spokespeople did not immediately respond to questions about which politicians he was referencing. But Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a rising star in the Republican Party who is often mentioned as a possible 2024 presidential contender, has notably declined to say whether he has received a booster.
"So I've done whatever I did, the normal shot. And, you know, that, at the end of the day, is people's individual decisions about what they want to do," DeSantis told Fox News Channel host Maria Bartiromo last month.
DeSantis' office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
Many House Republicans, including top Trump allies, have also declined to disclose their vaccination status. Some such as Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene are open about their refusal to get it.
By criticizing other politicians reluctant to disclose their vaccination status, Trump appears to be looking to turn the shots into a political issue that allows him to promote his administration's success in facilitating their development while creating a contrast with other possible 2024 GOP candidates loath to upset the base.
In recent weeks, the highly contagious omicron variant has driven record case counts, overwhelmed hospitals and disrupted essential services because of staffing shortages. The booster has been shown to significantly bolster immune protection against the variant, and the Biden White House has urged Americans to take the shots.
In an interview last month, Trump seemed to acknowledge the risk many of his supporters were taking by not getting vaccinated, though he has repeatedly said he is against mandating the shots.
"This was going to ravage the country far beyond what it is right now. Take credit for it. Take credit for it. ... Don't let them take it away. Don't take it away from ourselves," he said in December during an appearance with former Fox News host Bill O'Reilly when Trump first revealed he had received the booster and was booed by some in the crowd.
In an interview with conservative commentator Candace Owens, Trump stressed how well the vaccines work at preventing hospitalization and serious illness.
"The ones that get very sick and go to the hospital are the ones that don't take their vaccine," he told her. "People aren't dying when they take their vaccine."
Owens, a longtime Trump supporter, later sought to undermine Trump's support of the vaccines in the interview by pointing to his age, 75.
But in the OAN interview, Trump did not relent.
"The fact is that I think the vaccine has saved tens of millions of people throughout the world. I have had absolutely no side effects," he said. Still, he repeated his opinion that young people, for whom serious complications for the virus are rare, should not be vaccinated, even though health officials have urged everyone who is eligible to get the shots.
Trump was hospitalized with COVID-19 in October 2020, weeks before the presidential election, and received experimental monoclonal antibody treatment.
The widow of a Quebec man who died competing in an Ironman competition is looking for answers.
Facing pushback from physicians and businesspeople over the coming increase to the capital gains inclusion rate, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his deputy Chrystia Freeland are standing by their plan to target Canada's highest earners.
Former NDP leader Tom Mulcair says that what's happening now in a trash-littered federal park in Quebec is a perfect metaphor for how the Trudeau government runs things.
As some family doctors are retiring and others are moving away from family medicine, there are fewer medical students to take their place.
United States authorities who have been searching for a pair of missing kayakers from British Columbia since the weekend have recovered two bodies in the nearby San Juan Islands of Washington state.
Individuals being barred from entering Ontario’s legislature while wearing a keffiyeh say the garment is part of their cultural identity— and the only ones making it political are the politicians banning it.
The proposed merger of agricultural giants Viterra and Bunge is raising competition concerns from the federal government.
A Douglas C-54 Skymaster airplane crashed into the Tanana River near Fairbanks on Tuesday, Alaska State Troopers said.
NASA has finally heard back from Voyager 1 again in a way that makes sense. The most distant spacecraft from Earth hadn't sent home any understandable data since last November.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.
Molly Knight, a Grade 4 student in Nova Scotia, noticed her school library did not have many books on female athletes, so she started her own book drive in hopes of changing that.
Almost 7,000 bars of pure gold were stolen from Pearson International Airport exactly one year ago during an elaborate heist, but so far only a tiny fraction of that stolen loot has been found.