Live Free Or Die
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Under President Trump, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a record number of generic drugs designed to lower drug prices through competition.194 The White House reported in November 2019 that prescription drug prices are falling at rates not seen since the 1960s.195
In his 2019 State of the Union address, President Trump proposed to spend $500 million over ten years on childhood cancer research.196 He later signed the Tobacco-Free Youth Act, which raises the federal legal age for buying tobacco and vaping products from eighteen to twenty-one.197
CRIME AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM
President Trump signed the First Step Act, the most significant justice reform legislation in years, with overwhelming bipartisan support. “This legislation reformed sentencing laws that have wrongly and disproportionately harmed the African American community,” Trump said in his 2019 State of the Union address. “The First Step Act gives nonviolent offenders the chance to reenter society as productive, law-abiding citizens. Now, states across the country are following our lead. America is a nation that believes in redemption.”198 No one will ever forget when Alice Marie Johnson was released into the arms of her loving family. She’s someone I’ve gotten to know, someone who absolutely deserved a second chance. It took Donald Trump to make it happen.
The president recommitted the nation to implementing the crime prevention strategies involved in Project Safe Neighborhoods and convened the first nationwide meeting of that organization in eight years.199 In Trump’s first two years of office, the homicide rate for the largest U.S. cities dropped 6 percent, which the president attributed to Project Safe Neighborhoods. Trump secured $50 million in funding for the project, which he used in part to deploy almost two hundred new violent-crime prosecutors throughout America.200
As you can see, President Trump’s first-term accomplishments have been nothing short of remarkable, but if you depend on the extremely dishonest and liberal news outlets for your information, you’d think Trump’s presidency has been a historic catastrophe in which the middle class was driven into poverty as he systematically gave away the nation’s wealth to Putin. The media mob hid the fact that by nearly any metric, prior to the coronavirus outbreak, Trump’s economic record was the most successful since Reagan’s. The coronavirus devastated the economy in the short term, but President Trump has put the nation in the best possible position to bounce back once the virus has run its course and the nation can reopen.
At the time of the outbreak, our manufacturing was staging a major comeback, energy production was at record levels, taxes were lower, corporate money parked overseas was flowing back into America, and unemployment rates were lower than many thought possible. If President Trump could achieve all this in less than four years, imagine what he can do in eight. Let’s now take a look at how President Trump deftly managed this wholly unexpected virus that shocked the nation more than any health issue of my lifetime.
CHAPTER TEN Trump’s Response to the Coronavirus and America’s Great Comeback
The coronavirus stunned America with its extreme contagiousness and unpredictable lethality. Medical experts will eventually get to the bottom of this when sufficient data is collected and analyzed, but it’s important to remember that when the pandemic hit our shores, we didn’t know a lot about it. At the time no one could have dreamed that in just a few months we would shut down nearly our entire economy. President Trump was in a tough position because whether he acted cautiously or forcibly, people would get hurt.
It was a perfect position, however, for Trump’s critics, because no matter how he responded they could pin the blame on him—and they rose to the task, as they always do. The Democrats are so consumed with their hatred of Trump, and so determined to use any means possible to remove him from office, that their unhinged reaction to the coronavirus was predictable. Remember, this was a deadly virus that spread out of China, where the communist regime’s initial reaction was to lie to the entire world about the outbreak, try to cover it up, and arrest doctors who were informing others about the virus.1 But according to Democratic senator Chris Murphy, “The reason that we’re in the crisis that we are today is not because of anything that China did, is not because of anything the [World Health Organization] did. It’s because of what [President Trump] did.” You got that? China had nothing to do with it—the virus is 100 percent Trump’s fault. So many Democrats were scapegoating Trump that a Rasmussen poll found that 60 percent of Democratic likely voters agreed with Murphy’s statement.2
When he voiced optimism that America would defeat this menace, the left cited it as evidence of his unseriousness. Yet he was serious enough to ban travel from China and then Europe against the advice of almost all his critics and even many in his inner circle. But don’t ever expect the haters to give Trump any credit. To hear them tell the story, Trump’s inaction and incompetence cost thousands of American lives. But had he listened to them, had he cowered when they accused him of racism for banning travel from epicenters of the outbreak, thousands more Americans would have died, and the economy would have spiraled into further chaos.
As we’ll see, Trump and his team consistently took decisive action despite his critics blaming him, after the fact, for failing to take steps they themselves did not contemplate at the time. They were too busy investigating and impeaching him. During the first three Democratic presidential debates—on January 14, February 7, and February 19—the candidates endlessly attacked Trump but uttered only one reference to the coronavirus outbreak: a passing remark made by Pete Buttigieg on February 7. In the February 19 debate, Michael Bloomberg warned about Chinese people dying, but he was referring to climate change, not the virus.3 True to form, the Democrats were more worried about global warming than a spreading pandemic. In fact, at the next debate on February 25, as the coronavirus was spreading throughout the globe, candidate Tom Steyer argued that “the biggest threat to America right now in terms of our safety of our citizens is climate.”4
It’s particularly hard to explain how the Democrats ignored the virus during the February 7 and February 19 debates, seeing as the Trump administration on January 31 had declared the outbreak a public health emergency and announced the China travel ban. By that time, China had reported more than 34,500 confirmed coronavirus cases and more than 700 deaths.5 By the February 19 debate, China had reported 74,000 cases and more than 2,100 deaths, and twenty-six other countries had reported a total of 1,070 cases and eight deaths.6
President Trump later commented on the Democrats’ finger-pointing over the issue when they themselves didn’t think the virus was even worth discussing. “That was February 19, that’s way after I closed entrance from China into our country,” said Trump. “I just thought that was very interesting—because, you know, you hear these people, some of the people, the Democrats, said oh, this, that. It never even was part of their dialogue. Now they bring it up because you see what happens now. But they didn’t bring it up. But I brought it up.”7
The Biden campaign reacted to all this with its typical mix of befuddlement and hypocrisy. Just after the travel ban was announced, Ever-Forgetful Joe denounced Trump’s “record of hysterical xenophobia and fear mongering.” But in April he had a change of heart, bravely sending a staffer to tell CNN that, in fact, Biden supported the ban.8
This was no surprise—despite Democrats’ reflexive accusations of racism, the American people quickly understood, as the coronavirus rapidly spread worldwide, that banning travel from China was a commonsense defensive measure. In fact, at the end of April, Nancy Pelosi tried to diminish the credit Trump was getting for having instituted the ban. When asked about it on CNN, Pelosi sputtered that the travel ban “wasn’t as it is described, this great moment” because “tens of thousands of people were still allowed in from China…. If you’re going to shut the door because you have an evaluation of an epidemic, then shut the door.”9 As Pelosi herself acknowledged, those people entering America from China after the ban were American citizens and gr
een-card holders. So suddenly, the problem wasn’t that Trump adopted an unnecessary, racist travel ban, it was that the ban was too weak and didn’t stop Americans from returning home.
The Democrats’ hypocrisy could give you whiplash. On April 19, while interviewing Pelosi, my Fox News colleague Chris Wallace noted that she was accusing Trump of failing to respond to the virus in January and February, yet Pelosi herself went to San Francisco’s Chinatown on February 24 and announced, “We think it’s very safe to be in Chinatown” while encouraging tourists to go there. Dodging the issue of her hypocrisy, Pelosi claimed she “was saying that you should not discriminate against… Chinese-Americans” and outrageously accused the “the President and others” of “making Asian-Americans a target of violence across the country.” It’s noteworthy that Pelosi issues press releases nearly every day, often multiple times a day. But the day of her Chinatown visit—February 24—was the first time she issued a press release mentioning the virus. And far from warning of its dangers, the release was an interview she did in Chinatown in which she cited empty fashion shows in Italy and claimed such fears were “unwarranted” in America because of the “precautions” people were taking—all this as she urged public gatherings of tourists.10
In fact, while Democrats were ranting about Trump’s xenophobia, he was taking vital steps to manage this crisis, beginning with the travel ban and continuing in February and beyond. Democrats accuse Trump of adopting a racist travel ban in January and then doing virtually nothing in February. HBO’s Bill Maher pushed this narrative when interviewing Congressman Dan Crenshaw, who set him straight. Crenshaw reminded him that Trump requested funding from Congress to combat the virus in February, but the only vote Pelosi allowed at the time was a bill to ban flavored tobacco. “We were in a fact-finding mode in February. People forget this,” said Crenshaw. “People keep calling February this lost month, but it’s really not. That’s an easy and cheap accusation, because there’s no big bold moves taken like there was in January or like there was in March. But the reality is our government was working to create that test…. By March 3, there was only 102 cases in the United States and yet I’m hearing criticism that we should have been locked down weeks earlier, but do you think the American people would have accepted that with only 100 cases in the United States?”11
Democrats tried to portray Trump as incompetent throughout the pandemic. But at daily press briefings he demonstrated, despite a barrage of comically hostile and often personally nasty questions from the politicized White House press corps, his intimate knowledge of all aspects of the government’s response and showed he was fully in charge. He had become a wartime commander in chief, leading the nation, bringing together the public and private sectors, and working with state governors to implement his nationwide plan to slay this invisible enemy. Without delegating major decisions, he demonstrated prudent leadership by regularly conferring with business leaders, pharmaceutical companies, airline officials, health insurers, retail and grocery store representatives, and bank leaders.
Millions of Americans voted for Trump because they believed he could bring his business acumen and common sense to the White House, and they have been vindicated. His exceptional management of this effort showed his enormous talent for leadership and for inspiring capable people at all levels to work together to win this war. I am confident that even many of his critics were shocked—and disappointed—by how well he performed. President Trump was made for a time like this, and he outdid himself. This was not the caricature that the Democrats, the media, and Never Trumpers had projected for four years. This was not some ill-prepared Washington politician but a wise, sober leader calmly and effectively steering the ship of state through treacherous waters.
They tried to manufacture a wedge between Trump and his two principal medical advisers, Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx, but he was working in close cooperation with them every step of the way. When these doctors were encouraged to criticize Trump and say he was contradicting their advice, they refused to take the bait. All three worked in synch with each other, and both doctors emphasized that Trump was an attentive listener and quick learner and was following their advice.
President Trump was proactive throughout the outbreak. He was accessible and responsive to state governors and demonstrated foresight in managing the supply chain, securing necessary equipment for distribution to states and localities most in need. Respectful of federalism, he often encouraged states to make their own decisions based on local conditions and emphasized that the federal government would serve as a backstop, not a dictator. He alluded to what he believed to be his plenary power during this state of emergency, and he mentioned invoking this power if necessary, but he rarely used the federal whip hand.
Let’s now take a closer look at the timeline of the Trump administration’s actions to combat the outbreak. This abbreviated list conclusively rebuts false claims that Trump didn’t respond aggressively to the outbreak.
December 31, 2019: China reported its discovery of the coronavirus to the World Health Organization, confirming more than forty infections. “Reportedly, most patients had epidemiological links to a large seafood and animal market,” according to the Centers for Disease Control. “The market was closed on January 1, 2020.”12 While the CDC suspected a “zoonotic origin to the outbreak,” Fox News later reported that the virus may have, in fact, originated in a Wuhan lab as part of China’s efforts to compete with the United States.13 Three days later, CDC director Robert Redfield emailed George Gao, director of the Chinese CDC, and offered to send American scientists to China to investigate the virus. Getting no response, he sent Gao another email on January 5. On January 6 the CDC issued a travel health notice for Wuhan, which it updated on January 11.14
January 17: The CDC started public health entry screening at San Francisco, New York (JFK), and Los Angeles airports, as these received the most Wuhan travelers.15 On January 20, Dr. Fauci reported that the National Institutes of Health was working on developing a vaccine for the virus.16 On January 21, the CDC directed its Emergency Operations Center to provide support for the virus response. Also on that day the first infection was reported in the United States.17
January 21: The day of the first identifiable American coronavirus case in the state of Washington.18
January 23: The CDC sought emergency approval from the FDA to permit U.S. states to use a CDC-developed diagnostic test to detect the coronavirus. Though at least sixteen people had close contact with the Washington State man first diagnosed with the virus in the United States, none of them had yet shown symptoms of the virus by January 23. At that point the virus had killed eighteen people and infected some 650, mostly in China, and the World Health Organization would not yet declare the virus a global health emergency.19 On January 27, President Trump tweeted that he had made an offer to Chinese president Xi Jinping to send experts to China to investigate the virus, and the CDC urged Americans to avoid nonessential travel to China. On January 29, Trump announced the formation of the President’s Coronavirus Task Force.20
January 31: With Chinese officials confirming some ten thousand cases of COVID-19 in China, Trump declared the coronavirus a public health emergency and issued a travel ban suspending entry into the United States for foreign nationals who were in China during the fourteen-day period preceding their entry or attempted entry into the United States.21 The Department of Homeland Security directed that all flights from China and all passengers who had traveled to China within the preceding two weeks be routed through one of seven U.S. airports and expanded entry screening to eight U.S. airports on February 2.22
The travel ban prevented more infected people from coming into the United States and gave us time to prepare for the outbreak. But the media mob denounced the ban as unnecessary and racist, while House Democrats that very day proposed the “No Ban Act” to require that any future travel ban be temporary and subject to congressional oversight.23 As late as March, Democrats were still bliste
ring Trump for the ban. Calling Trump xenophobic, Bernie Sanders declared that he wouldn’t consider closing the U.S. border to prevent the spread of the virus.24
Early to mid-February: Trump promised in his State of the Union address on February 4 to “take all necessary steps” to protect Americans from the virus. Meanwhile, Democrats were focused on voting the next day in President Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate. Also in early February the administration began briefing and working with state governors, and the U.S. shipped test kits for the virus to some thirty nations. The Department of Health and Human Services began to work with private companies to develop a coronavirus vaccine and treatment for infections. Later in February the Food and Drug Administration permitted certified labs to develop coronavirus testing kits. In mid-February the CDC began working with five labs to conduct “community-based influenza surveillance” to study and detect the spread of the virus.25
Late February: On February 23, the administration raised travel advisory levels for Japan and South Korea. On February 24, it asked Congress for $2.5 billion to fight the virus, but Nancy Pelosi delayed a vote on the measure. On February 26, Trump discussed virus containment efforts with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and appointed Vice President Mike Pence to lead his Coronavirus Task Force.26 The next day, Pence appointed Dr. Deborah Birx to serve as the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator. On February 29, the administration issued a travel ban for Italy, South Korea, and Iran.27
Early March: The administration announced it would buy some 500 million N95 respirators over the next eighteen months, and President Trump signed an $8.3 billion bill to target the outbreak, with $7.76 billion to be distributed to federal, state, and local agencies.28 Trump and Pence met with major insurance companies to persuade them to waive copays for COVID-19 testing. The administration directed the Small Business Administration to issue low-interest loans to small businesses affected by the outbreak and asked Congress to increase this fund by $50 billion.29 The Education Department eased rules to provide colleges and universities more flexibility to conduct online classes during the outbreak.30