Well, I said in my last post I would not post about Trump for a while. I wasn’t quite right. I will post if I believe what he says or does relates to Christian teaching and or the Bible.
Today, President Trump gave a lengthy speech outside the White House in a News Conference with about a couple dozen people he collected from the federal government and private sector to accompany him. The main takeaway was that he declared a National Emergency concerning this coronavirus, identified by experts as COVID-19. He called upon many of those present to speak of their efforts in this crisis and then took questions from the media. I thought all of that was good. But some of his remarks and actions were not good.
First, the good part. President Trump advised Americans to wash their hands often, especially after being outside the home and touching things. This virus can stay on surfaces for two or more days. I think I recall the president also advising practicing “social distancing,” meaning keeping away from other people when we speak to them if we don’t know for sure if they don’t have the virus. However, today, he was constantly right beside people and likely breathing their air.
As with President Trump’s last speech, which lasted ten minutes, he constantly brags. If he doesn’t brag about himself, he brags about the USA. All of that is so unnecessary. I have posted multiple times about it. Trump can’t stop trying to Make America Like Trump. He said today, “Americans are the strongest and most resilient people in the world.” After that, he soon said, “America has the greatest heroes and most inspiring people of the world.” I think for anyone who is not a U.S. citizen, that is nauseating! It does the opposite of winning friends and positively influencing people. It hurts our relationships with other nations.
I have quoted the following biblical texts before in relation to President Trump:
“Let another praise you and not your own lips” (Proverbs 27.2).
“When pride comes, then comes disgrace” (Proverbs 11.1 NRSV).
“Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16.18).
For weeks, Trump has not been listening to his medical advisors. He said all this alarm about coronavirus was “a hoax” perpetrated by “the FAKE NEWS” and “Democrats.” He predicted the spread of coronavirus would soon be gone like “a miracle.” Yet Dr. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases–who has now arisen as the foremost expert and was standing beside Trump today–has been saying things quite contrary to those Trump statements and others.
The Bible says, “in abundance of counselors there is victory” (Proverbs 24.6). At least Trump now seems to be listening to them and doing according to their advice. But we went for weeks with a president telling us the wrong things about this virus. It may cost many lives that Trump caused such a delay in our federal government’s response to this virus.
Trump says constantly in recent days that the U.S. has the greatest medical people in the world and that we are doing the best against this virus. That latter is a total lie. The U.S. has fewer hospital beds per capita of population than Europe and Southeast Asia. And we are way behind China, South Korea, and Taiwan in our response to this virus, especially in our testing. The U.S. has had a huge shortage of test kits and respirators.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention had sent out coronavirus test kits to states without knowing they were faulty. Time is of the essence in combating this virus, so this caused a precious loss of time. Yesterday, the Ohio Department of Health announced that Ohio had only five confirmed cases of coronavirus (it’s now thirteen), yet the department also said it believes there are at least 100,000 Ohioans who have the virus. They say that because they have been so ill-equipped in testing for it. Washington State has just now done as in South Korea, setting up drive-thru testing. President Trump announced that Walmart, Target, and Walgreens has agreed to provide their parking lots as space for such a drive thru testing program.
Days ago, President Trump made Vice President Mike Pence head of the coronavirus task force. He seems to be doing a pretty good job. But I wish he would stop his constant exalting of President Trump as he did today. Again, that is nauseating!
Dr. Fauci and many other U.S. medical professionals have been advising us Americans to not shake hands since that can transmit the virus from person to person. Yet each time Trump introduced some male to speak, he shook hands with him either before or after the man spoke or both until one CEO finally gave him an elbow bump. Trump just acts like he doesn’t really care about this crisis or believe it. It certainly is a poor example for Americans watching the telecast. And it is a snub toward his medical advisors who are telling us not to do that.
The most troubling thing about our nation’s response to this coronavirus is our lack of hospital beds and respirators for this pandemic (so declared by the World Health Organization this week). Days ago, President Trump announced that the federal government would provide $8 billion for medical authorities in treating this threat. Today, he added $50 billion to this effort. At least now, he’s getting serious with the money in responding to this. He also spoke of relinquishing federal regulations that had prevented state medical authorities to fight this virus, which seemed good.
During media questioning, he was asked if he “takes responsibility” for abandoning the Office of Epidemic in the National Security Council in 2018, which was very wrongheaded. His National Security advisor John Bolton, who Trump fired last year, was the person who actually shut it down. Trump responded by saying it was “a nasty question” and he “didn’t do it.” He also said, “I don’t take responsibility for it.” That was not good. He is the president. He certainly is responsible for closing it down.
Trump has often been asked in recent days if he has taken the coronavirus test. He has always answered no and that he doesn’t need to take it because his health is fine. Yet he comes into contact with so many people and has that most important job in the world that it seems to lot of people, including me, that that is irresponsible. So, he was asked about that again, today, and he said the same although after further discussing it he said he might do it. Only hours earlier, the major of Miami said he was tested for the virus even though he had no symptoms of it, and the result came back positive, so that he has the coronavirus.
At least in this news conference, President Trump focused solely on combating this virus rather than almost totally on the stock market in his last speech. Thus, now we are getting serious about this pandemic that could be way, way worse than the seasonal flu, since its mortality rate right now is 60 times greater in Italy than the common flu, 40 times greater in China, and thirty times greater in the USA. We need to hunker down in our homes, listen to the medical experts, and do what they say, and hopefully the world will get through this without millions and millions of people dying from it. For the Spanish flu in 2018 killed some 50 million people according to most estimates.
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