Dear Mr. President
April 10, 2020
The following is a column submitted by senior Isabella Graf. Want to share an opinion of your own? Send an op-ed to [email protected].
Dear Mr. President,
What are you doing?
Our nation and our world are in the middle of a war, a war like nothing we have faced before. We are at war against an invisible enemy that threatens to destroy our way of life, and for many, life itself. This enemy does not negotiate, it does not surrender, and it will not cease to ravage our society unless we wholeheartedly stand up against it. And so again I ask, What are you doing?
As the leader of the free world, the American people are supposed to look up to you. They are supposed to place their trust, their hope and their faith within your hands; they are supposed to believe that you are their selfless leader, prepared to do everything in your power to ensure the health and well being of his people above all else. This should be your shining moment, your chance to show the American people that in a time of crisis, of fear, of uncertainty, you can rise to the challenge and pull a nation in great distress back together.
On March 6 you touted the falsehood that “anyone that needs a test, gets a test” merely one day after your own Vice President, as well as various health experts, urged that the United States was experiencing great shortages in testing kits. On March 11 you claimed that private health-insurance companies had “agreed to waive all co-payments for coronavirus treatments, extend insurance coverage to these treatments, and to prevent surprise medical billing”, when in reality, only the cost of the coronavirus testing would be waived.
On March 13, I watched intently as you formally declared the COVID-19 Pandemic a “national emergency”. I breathed a sigh of relief that finally, you had chosen to see this virus for what it truly was; not just the“flu,” but a very real and dangerous threat to the American people. In my mind, your previous dismissiveness of the virus and failure to act when our country was at the forefront of the outbreak could not be forgotten, but I was ready to move past it; I was ready to give you another chance.
Since that day, I have watched your daily press conferences, hopeful that you will finally rise to the challenge, and be the leader we need you to be as we confront a crisis of unprecedented magnitude. Yet, you continue to engage in your regular antics. You continuously choose to misinform, mislead and misplace blame. You continuously choose to let down the American people at a time when they need you most.
On March 19, you asserted that the FDA had approved the antimalarial drug chloroquine to treat COVID-19. Mere minutes later, the FDA commissioner was forced to correct you, and clarify that the drug had not been approved for the treatment of COVID-19 and still had to undergo extensive testing in a clinical setting. Five days later, a man from Arizona died after attempting to take the drug that the ‘President of the United States’ touted as a “cure” for Coronavirus. Your misinformation kills, Mr. President.
With New York’s emergence as America’s epicenter of the virus, hospital beds, ventilators, masks, and protective gear have grow increasingly scarce as the state continues to drown in cases. Their Doctors and nurses have become truly scared for the first time in their careers; forced to risk their own lives due to the lack of PPE to save those infected. Yet amidst all of this, amidst all of the suffering you again dispute the indisputable. In response to a desperate request by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo for ventilators, you responded with dismissive ignorance. “I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators,” you say, in spite of plentiful government reports predicting catastrophic shortages in medical equipment that lie ahead in the course of this pandemic.
You blamed China. On March 21 you said you wished China “would have told us earlier” about the novel coronavirus. You knew about it, Mr. President, far earlier than you care to admit, however, you failed to act until extensive damage was already done. Numerous reports from as early as January indicate that US intelligence officials were aware of, and had been warning about, the potential for COVID-19 to become a pandemic. On March 19, you referred to the scientifically termed COVID-19, as the “Chinese Virus” in yet another attempt to deflect blame for the eruption of this pandemic in the United States off of your administration. By doing so, you have only exacerbated the presence of misdirected anger and violence against Asians and Asian Americans. Your words set an example Mr. President, and the example of prioritizing the scrutinization of another country over response efforts for your own people during a crisis is not only extremely counterproductive, but it unfairly implicates an entire ethnicity. This rhetoric, Mr. President, only further divides us into an ever-dangerous us vs. them mentality at a time when we so desperately need to unite.
You blamed your own impeachment. In a letter written to Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer on April 2, you somehow managed to fabricate a completely baseless claim, blaming the massive outbreak of COVID-19 in New York which began in March, on the impeachment inquiry that concluded in early February. You wrote, “If you spent less time on your ridiculous impeachment hoax, which went haplessly on forever and ended up going nowhere (except increasing my poll numbers), and instead focused on helping the people of New York, then New York would not have been so completely unprepared for the ‘invisible enemy.’” This speaks for itself.
You aimlessly search for a scapegoat. On April 7 you threatened to hold funding from the World Health Organization.
The W.H.O. really blew it. For some reason, funded largely by the United States, yet very China centric. We will be giving that a good look. Fortunately I rejected their advice on keeping our borders open to China early on. Why did they give us such a faulty recommendation?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 7, 2020
Mr. President, in what world is this logical? The WHO is perhaps the most vital organization involved in addressing and combating this pandemic throughout the world, and there is no evidence to support that it has been anything but proactive in combating this pandemic. Threatening to cut their funding marks yet another one of your pitiful attempts to shamelessly cover up your own inaction by casting someone else as the villain responsible for the severity of the outbreak we are currently experiencing.
You offer false hope. You hold onto undue hope and perilous optimism to shift attention away from the reality of an alarming rise in infections, a mounting economic crisis, and your administration’s failure to act swiftly and strictly enough that undoubtedly cost American lives. On March 15 you said “It’s a very contagious virus. It’s incredible. But it’s something we have tremendous control over.” Under control, Mr. President? After you left the room, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was forced to counter this falsehood as best he could without directly confronting the fact that you had deceived the American people once again, saying, “The worst is yet ahead of us.”
Despite your criticisms in January of “the democrats politicizing” in the wake of a pandemic, and that “this is their new hoax,” you politicize the crisis yourself. You brazenly touted the “ratings” of your daily Coronavirus press briefings.
Because the “Ratings” of my News Conferences etc. are so high, “Bachelor finale, Monday Night Football type numbers” according to the @nytimes, the Lamestream Media is going CRAZY. “Trump is reaching too many people, we must stop him.” said one lunatic. See you at 5:00 P.M.!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2020
It is extremely alarming to me Mr. President, that these are the numbers you are focusing on, that these are the numbers that matter to you. It is extremely alarming to me that you, the President of the United States, see it fit to turn a global pandemic into a popularity contest, casting yourself as the winner.
My point, Mr. President, is that people listen to you, they trust your words, or at least they want to. I shouldn’t have to watch the Task Force briefings every day, skeptical if the words that come out of your mouth are true. I shouldn’t have to wince every time you excessively exaggerate, inappropriately offer self-congratulation, misplace blame, ignore facts, and deflect responsibility.
I should be able to trust and respect my President. We are in the middle of a global pandemic, a crisis that begs unforgiving uncertainty in itself. The only cure to uncertainty is to acknowledge, accept and disclose the truth of the matter, and leave everything else out. We cannot have a president who refuses to accept the facts and the words of scientists and public health experts alike. We cannot have a president who refuses to take responsibility “at all,” and who refuses to accept he could be doing more. I may not have voted for you, but that doesn’t mean I want you to fail; the stakes are much too high. The American people are scared Mr. President, I am scared. So please, start telling the truth.
^^^^^^ • Feb 14, 2022 at 4:26 pm
By the way, he’ll probably never read this letter anyway.
Alex Clark • Apr 10, 2020 at 3:24 pm
It’s absurd to blame the entire pandemic on trump, to imply he’s not standing up to corona and he’s letting the people down. The Arizona man’s death was a result of negligence; to self medicate a prescription drug, he decided to ingest a fish tank cleaner “equivalent.” However, in the scope of a pandemic, occurrences like this and finger-pointing tweets are relatively trivial and are used much more as attacks on the president’s character instead of indications he is failing his country. This virus is incredibly contagious and very difficult to control. Could the president have done more to curb its spread? Surely, but claiming he’s the villain in this situation is ridiculous. Trump isn’t falsely reporting statistics, misinforming the world about the severity of the disease(ahem, ahem). He’s the president of the United States, of course ending this pandemic is his top priority. With a situation like this, I can’t say for sure who’s mainly at fault; I think humans don’t have a great understanding of exponential growth. What I can say for sure is that characterizing the president as an ignoramus who doesn’t care about the American people is wildly illogical and is much less effective than telling people to stay at home.
"Contrarian Polemicist" • Apr 10, 2020 at 11:43 am
We must not forget that we are at war with China. You fail to mention that in your article. We are in an economic, cultural, political, and environmental war with China. Your characterization of the coronavirus pandemic is alarmist and incorrect. This is being blown out of proportion, and I for one was very pleased when President Trump said this hysteria was part of a hoax. He has since back tracked and not gone with the Swedish system of virus management (which is working), but nonetheless he has done so under immense pressure from people like you. His “failure to act” can be alternatively phrased as a willingness to not shut down the entire economy and way of life. Trump is one of the only world leaders to question all the lockdowns, all the hysteria, and all of the dread. Shoutout to Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, he is protecting his nation and protecting the faith of his nation. I simply do not understand where desire to bash chloroquine comes from. Sure it is not a perfect remedy, but it is literally the MOST effective drug given to coronavirus patients. It has saved lives. But from reading CNN, MSNBC, NYT, or the Washington Compost, you would not know that. Also, New York eventually announced that they did not need as many ventilators. Trump was correct. MOST IMPORTANTLY: Why can’t the President call coronavirus what it is; it is a Chinese virus that came from China. Of course while Beijing is laughing hysterically at the United States, the American left wants to immediately preoccupy themselves with “xenophobia” and “racism” and “bigotry”. What on earth kind of pathological altruism is this? CHINA IS THE ENEMY FOR THE 21ST CENTURY. It does not matter how you phrase it, the Communist Party wants the destruction of the West and wants to replace it with their Maoist order. ” Your words set an example Mr. President, and the example of prioritizing the scrutinization of another country over response efforts for your own people during a crisis is not only extremely counterproductive, but it unfairly implicates an entire ethnicity.” An entire country needs to be scrutinized! Due to China’s negligence and disgusting practices towards animals, now the rest of the world has to deal with it. THIS IS CHINA’S FAULT, not Trump’s. If Americans and Westerners alike do not wake up to this reality, it will be too late to stop the Chinese. CHINA (the government, not the people) IS EVIL. COMMUNISM IS EVIL. Wake up and realize that. China wants these kinds of articles to be written. They are laughing at Americans right now. And they will be laughing all the way to Wall Street, Washington, and to 2100. Additionally the WHO should not be trusted, whatsoever. THE WHO IS A COMMUNIST RUN ORGANIZATION. The Director-General of the World Health Organization is Tedros Adhanom. He is a member of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front political party back in his native Ethiopia. This is a far-left, Marxist-Leninist political party. They want to see a communist revolution in Ethiopia. Communists should not be trusted. Trump is standing up to them. Please consider what I have written, your nation needs to hear this. Articles like these are helping China.
Confused Postal Worker • Apr 10, 2020 at 11:32 am
Who wrote this letter? It’s not signed…
fellow senior • Apr 10, 2020 at 10:36 am
Thank you, Isabella. This is exactly what many people need to hear at this time. So many seniors are definitely feeling as if we are getting the short end of the stick on this school year, and to know that our president isn’t doing what he should to help the cause of every single person in the world lying on a hospital bed right now is asinine. I hope that people come to see that this “media star” is most certainly not a politician and even more so does not know how to make safe and well thought out decisions for the United States in a time where we need a leader more than any other time. Thank you for shedding light on a subject which should definitely come into play this November, when we look back at this time and decide whether we want this man to govern our country for the next four years.
forest scout reader • Apr 10, 2020 at 10:28 am
Did trump do a good job preventing the pandemic? No. But let’s not act like the WHO is a godsend organization undeserving of any pointed fingers by trump. They downplayed the pandemic for months.
“Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China??.“
-a tweet from WHO back in January. They were being fed propaganda by the CCP and ate it up. The blame does not have to be only on one person. There are multiple people to blame for the outbreak, and the people at the WHO organization do shoulder some blame, so don’t downplay that just because you think it will make trump look bad.
Amazed Senior • Apr 10, 2020 at 10:26 am
I loved love thing article. Thank you for perfectly articulating the issues the citizens of this country are facing. This is so well put. I loved how amazingly connected everything was leading back to the basic question we all have, “what are you doing”. No one can confidently look at what our president is doing right now and say it is close to a solution to this terrifying issue. That’s scary. I loved this article and hope to soon see change in these problems.
Misinformed Citizen • Apr 10, 2020 at 9:47 am
Obviously Trump’s overdone it with all of his mentions of chloroquine. But you’re blaming the president for someone who died because they consumed FISH TANK CLEANER????? That is completely illogical. While it’s horrible they died, Trump’s press conference did not kill them, their decision to self-medicate with chloroquine PHOSPHATE did. Chloroquine phosphate is fish tank cleaner and has a label on it that says it is poisonous to humans.
Queen • Apr 10, 2020 at 9:13 am
You are a QUEEN! This is amazing i love it
Mr. Mergl • Apr 10, 2020 at 8:00 am
Well put Isabella! Thank you.