White House invites call with Nicki Minaj to discuss COVID vaccine

• "They want you to get vaccinated for the Met. if I get vaccinated it won’t for the Met," Minaj wrote in the tweet.
• Minaj then drew widespread attention over a subsequent tweet that included false information about the side effects of the vaccine, writing that her "cousin in Trinidad won’t get the vaccine cuz his friend got it & became impotent."
• Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN's Jake Tapper that "there’s no evidence that [male fertility problems] happen, nor is there any mechanistic reason to imagine that it would happen."

Following the internet uproar over Minaj's tweets with misinformation about the vaccine's side effects, the White House offered a call with Minaj to explain the safety of the vaccine.

• "As we have with others, we offered a call with Nicki Minaj and one of our doctors to answer questions she has about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine," a White House official said in a statement.

Psaki on Thursday said officials had proposed "a very early stage call" about the efficacy of the vaccine.

• "This is pretty standard and something we do all the time. It was a very early stage call at a staff level, staff-to-staff, and ... we weren't even at the point of discussing the mechanisms or the format or anything along those lines, it was simply an offer to have a conversation, and an early-stage call"
• "We work with a range of partners to communicate the efficacy and the safety of the vaccine," Psaki said.
• "We know there might be more effective voices, we don't always know how effective working in partnership with celebrities may or may not be, but sometimes it is a tool that we can use," Psaki said.