By: Lieba Nesis

I am sitting at my computer both angry, and distraught at the mistreatment President Trump has received as he battles this dreaded virus. I just finished reading a report by CNN entitled “History’s Verdict on Trump will be devastating,” written by Michael D’Antonio, a Trump hater, whose last book was called “Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success.”

These vitriolic attempts to undermine and destroy a president who has faced and overcome insurmountable odds in the past couple of weeks is dumbfounding. Every time I watch a newscaster question him I cringe with embarrassment at the disrespect and hatred leveled at a man who has sacrificed his life for this country. CNN’s chief White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, who consistently “Accosts” the president with his threatening demeanor, continued his unrelenting attacks at the Monday March 30th press conference. “What do you say to Americans who are upset with you over the way you downplayed this crisis over the last couple of months”, a belligerent Acosta asked, as he went on to enumerate all the different occasions Trump told the American people not to worry. During a time of war, the failure to support a president-any president-can lead to devastating consequences. Moreover, Trump’s calm and professional demeanor provides a sense of relief and comfort to a panicky public.

History has never seen a president handle a completely out-of-the-realm scenario better than Trump. Up until February 5, 2020, Trump was fighting the Democrats fake impeachment process. Nonetheless, he had the foresight to cut off travel from China on Jan 31st; a move that saved hundreds of thousands of lives but was nonetheless criticized by both China and the World Health Organization (WHO). He thereby established a Coronavirus Task Force on January 29, 2020 and continued to monitor the situation.

There is only one country and person responsible for this pandemic and that is China and its President, Xi Jinping, who continued to mask the lethality and transmissibility of the disease for months. According to Xi, China has only 3,300 deaths and 82,000 cases, a laughable statistic. Xi, in conjunction with the WHO, continued to insist through the month of January, that the virus was not readily spread to others. As late as February 6th, the United States had only 12 confirmed cases and there was no evidence of mass respiratory issues or any uptick in patients at hospitals in America.

Not one country was or is prepared for the scale and scope of this plague despite receiving the same intelligence as America. Countries that are situated significantly closer to China and therefore, have a better understanding of the direness of the situation such as Russia, Tokyo and South Korea were and are still processing the ravaging effects of the disease. China, which has faced numerous illnesses such as SARS 1 was caught off guard with insufficient doctors, personal protective equipment and testing kits. The notion that this virus would overcome the United States or any country was previously unthinkable. As late as March 6th there were only 200 cases and 14 deaths in the United States.

However, things quickly took a turn for the worse over the next week as over a thousand cases were reported along with 38 deaths leading the President to address the crisis on March 11th to an increasingly alarmed public. The action this wartime President has taken in the span of just two-and-a-half weeks is mind-boggling. Countries such as Italy, Spain and the UK are currently begging for our help. Under Trump’s leadership the economy has been saved from near-collapse with a $2.2 trillion bipartisan stimulus package. He has invoked the Defense Production Act to force GM to make 10,000 ventilators a month. He has spearheaded the FDA’s approval of the Battelle sterilization system which can decontaminate up to 80,000 respirator masks a day. He has fast-tracked the approval of potential antidote Hydroxychloroquine with Novartis donating 30 million pills and Bayer giving 1 million doses.

His utilization of private industry during this crisis has been nothing short of extraordinary. In one of the most game-changing moves he directed Abbott Labs to join forces with the FDA in producing a rapid test that will diagnose the disease within 5 minutes-with 50,000 tests a day going out this Wednesday. Yesterday he sent a Navy ship containing 1,000 beds and 12 operating rooms to New York to alleviate the stress on overwhelmed hospitals. His list of accomplishments are never-ending; and yet Nancy Pelosi disgracefully remarked “as the president fiddles, people are dying.” Pelosi is obviously gearing up for a new impeachment fight declaring, “when did the president, know about this… and what did he know”-absolving herself of all responsibility in the process.

In one of the most shameful moments in media history, NBC’s “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd asked presidential contender Joe Biden if the president had “blood on his hands.” Even Biden conceded this was too harsh an assessment. It is about time someone from the other side recognized the loathsomeness of these repugnant attacks that are destroying the fabric of our society and leading to quantifiable harm in a crisis situation.