Trump holds self-congratulatory vaccine 'summit,' dismisses concerns over virus spread

The video made it seem like those officials, and others, expressed pessimism about how quickly a vaccine could be produced -- in contrast with clips of Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar touting the administration's vaccine program, dubbed "Operation Warp Speed."While the development of COVID-19 vaccines has taken place at a record pace, the United States had not exceeded expectations Trump and Azar themselves laid out earlier this year.In the spring, the administration had spoken of obtaining 300 million doses by the end of the year, earlier this fall, Azar predicted there would be 100 million doses available by the end of the year.In reality, the United States will obtain 40 million at most, and that's only if two leading vaccine candidates -- produced by the pharmaceutical company Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, and a second by Moderna -- receive authorization by the Food and Drug Administration.The "summit" came on the same day the United Kingdom became the first Western nation to begin mass inoculations for COVID-19 -- and as Biden unveiled key health nominees and appointments.Earlier Tuesday, the chief scientific adviser for "Operation Warp Speed," Moncef Slaoui, had said that he did not know anything about the executive order vaccines Trump planned to sign.Slaoui said in an interview on ABC"s "Good Morning America" that he was "staying out of this.""Frankly, I don't know," Slaoui said, when ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos asked him for details.