Trump’s response was delayed
Re: “Trump did more than most,” March 24 letter to the editor
A recent letter touted President Donald Trump as a forerunner in alerting the world to the dangers of the coronavirus. That is false. In January, he went on record saying it wasn’t anything to worry about.
After cases began escalating, he still denied it was a pandemic. He had to, because he gutted a part of the White House’s disease monitoring and recovery planning offices.
He could have asked daily for the best prognoses that the CDC could give about the virus, and then acted on it. He didn’t choose to believe their take on the immediacy of the situation.
I believe that if the president had taken charge early on, and showed a positive recovery stance, the whole country could have gotten behind him and the CDC.
He chose to deny it until the numbers of cases became so overwhelming, he was forced to call it a pandemic. What a shame.
Richard Debevec, Aurora
Sowing seeds of mistrust
Re: “We must give our leaders a chance during this crisis,” March 25 guest commentary
In his recent column, Sage Naumann urges us to give our elected leaders the benefit of the doubt during this period of unprecedented crisis. I applaud his message. I was amused, however, when he mentioned “a cultural mistrust of government.”
Naumann’s Republican Party has spent decades sowing the seeds of that very mistrust, telling us time and again that big government is the enemy. To paraphrase Grover Norquist, many conservatives want to shrink government to the size where they can drown it in the bathtub. If they achieve their goal, then when the next big crisis strikes the United States, we will all drown.
David Myers, Littleton
Wednesday’s column by Sage Naumann, communications director for the Colorado Senate Republicans, is a complete outrage.
“In uncertain times such as these, it is quite easy to become perplexed by the actions of those at the top.” Thatap quite true. Letap assume that “at the top” means our esteemed president. There isn’t room here to lay out Trump’s meandering discourse, but sometimes the coronavirus is not a problem, sometimes it is a problem but itap completely under control, sometimes itap a Democratic hoax. He visits the CDC and ruminates “I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it. Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Trump have publicly disagreed on how long it will take for a vaccine to become available. Fauci has made clear that he does not think the drug chloroquine holds the potential that Trump says it does. “Itap a game-changer.” (Not to mention that the Trump-induced run on the two drugs in question is shrinking stocks for those who need them for legitimate medical purposes.) But Fauci also has said there was a limit to what he could do when Trump makes false statements. “I can’t jump in front of the microphone and push him down.”
But then, why worry? This will all have passed by Easter, when the church pews will be filled to overflowing.
Robert E. McCullough, Denver
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