Trump takes credit for defeating COVID-19 in New Year’s Eve rant: ‘Everyone is calling to thank me’

Donald Trump on Thursday celebrated the end of 2020 with an upbeat video message where he used xenophobic language to describe the novel coronavirus and claimed that he is receiving calls from around the globe thanking him for his response to the pandemic.

Trump's comments came one day after the United States set a new record for COVID-19 deaths.

"3,927 people died of Covid-19 in 24 hours in the US, according to a count released by Johns Hopkins University, a new daily record for fatalities from the virus," AFP reported Wednesday. "That brought the US total to 19,715,899 infections and 341,845 deaths since the pandemic began."

The surge in death comes against the backdrop of the Trump administration failing to meet their own goals for vaccinations.

"Nearly 2.8 million people in the U.S. have received 1st dose of #covid19 vaccine. 20 million vaccinations were promised until recently. Before that, 100 million," Dr. Leana Wen noted on Thursday. "We need to ramp up speed ASAP."

Nevertheless, Trump declared victory.

"They said it would take a medical miracle and that's exactly what it is," Trump argued.

"Years from now they'll be talking about it, they'll be talking about this great, great thing we did with the vaccines," he predicted.

"We've already begun a nationwide vaccination program and we're sending the vaccine all over the world," Trump said, despite the shortages of the vaccine in America.

"The world will benefit, we'll benefit, and everybody is calling to thank me," he claimed.