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A spokesperson for Redfield initially gave ABC News a statement that the director in his testimony had intended to convey that most Americans would complete their vaccinations around summer 2021. An hour later, however, Redfield’s office rescinded that statement.

It was not immediately clear if Redfield was standing by his original testimony -- at odds with the president -- or would be issuing a new statement.

Meanwhile, Democratic leaders have insisted on a sweeping fifth stimulus package -- at least $2.2 trillion -- but Senate Republicans and the White House have demanded that the number be far lower. Trump threw a curve ball to his party leaders on Wednesday though, tweeting, \"Go for the much higher numbers, Republicans, it all comes back to the USA anyway (one way or another!).\"

\"PHOTO:
Anna Moneymaker/Pool via AP
PHOTO: Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention testifies at a hearing with the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Sept. 16, 2020.
>

Redfield said in his testimony it will take somewhere between $5.5 billion and $6 billion \"to get all 64 jurisdictions ready to implement\" his agency's distribution plan.

And Kadlec, who works with the efforts to manufacture vaccines ahead of potential authorization by the Food and Drug Administration, said they need an additional $20 billion to have 300 million doses of a vaccine available.

\"We have basically worked to basically do simultaneously the clinical trials, as well as doing the manufacturing of vaccines. So, if and when -- whether that's two weeks, three weeks, two months or four months -- once a clinical trial is complete and that scientific data is reviewed by the FDA and approved, then we have vaccine potentially available immediately to us,\" Kadlec said of Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration's plan to expedite vaccine allocation.

\"We need to figure out a way to do this. ... Now is the time,\" Subcommittee Chairman Roy Blunt, R-Mo., told ABC News Wednesday. Blunt suggested that perhaps Congress could agree to some piecemeal approach, but so far, Democratic leaders have refused.

Lawmakers on the subcommittee that oversees HHS funding also raised concerns that money they appropriated for COVID-19 response was being used for other things, including concerns from Democrats about reports that the agency is soliciting a $250 million contract for a communications firm to convey a hopeful message to the American public about the end of the pandemic.

\"We have two deputy secretaries of HHS before us today and neither one of them can testify as to whether that contract was awarded, why it was awarded, what the reasons for it were,\" Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said during the hearing.

\"It's increasingly impossible for any of us to know who's in charge,\" he added. \"We've got two people at the highest echelon of HHS that can't answer questions about a massive contract that's been awarded.\"

\"PHOTO:
Anna Moneymaker/Pool via AP
PHOTO: Admiral Brett Giroir, Robert Kadlec, and Dr. Robert Redfield testify at a hearing with the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Sept. 16, 2020.
>

Redfield said the CDC was not involved in that contract or working to develop its message, just that the agency was told to transfer money to HHS.

\"CDC received the direction from HHS and OMB (the Office of Management and Budget) to transfer $300 million to HHS,\" Redfield told Murray.

\"We haven't been involved in this, other than the extent that the funds were transferred to HHS and so I assume that they're going to come back to the different subject matter experts, but again we haven't been involved in that,\" he said. \"You know if given the opportunity that CDC would obviously want to put forth the accurate messaging for the American public.\"

ABC News' Anne Flaherty and Libby Cathey contributed to this report.

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