Unfortunately, people like you don’t give Trump the credit for never making the shots mandatory. Democrats did. Encouraging scientists to develop a shot is one thing. Forcing people to get it in order to keep their jobs is another.
I give Trump credit for not making the shots mandatory. I fault him reducing the development time and not communicating the risk in both safety & effectiveness. You don’t accelerate complex developments without dramatically increasing risk. Some things can’t be accelerated no matter how much pressure or risk you put on the developers.
Trump really does deserve credit for cutting the red tape to make something available. The Democrats then made it mandatory. Two completely different issues. It was clear early on that elderly and those with certain medical issues were at a much higher risk of death than the general population, and as time went on that younger people had very little risk. Yes, there are always risks with anything, and especially with a new technology not really used on people before. Trump enabled it to be given to people who saw the risk/benefit weighed in favor of the shot.
I was personally at the younger end of the elderly spectrum (62) but had a lot of health issues, so for me I figured I’d take the risk. Actually I saw the enormity of potential deaths amongst at-risk people, and I volunteered to be part of the initial Moderna study group, so the risk for me was much higher as it was just the beginning of human experimentation. Didn’t know if I got the placebo or shot until months after the booster shot, not until it was publicly available being rolled out to the really old people. I knew there was some potential of even death, but we were facing a global pandemic we didn’t understand. Trump deserves credit, and Democrats deserve blame for forcing it on people that didn’t want it, especially younger and people without health issues that really didn’t need any protection based on an experimental shot.
Before giving Trump too much credit, remember he was out of office before the vax was in widespread distribution. Based on his performance on this issue before he left office, I think he would have mandated the shots if Birx and Fauci recommended it.