Donald Trump Jr. Says Americans Should Be Thanking The President For His ‘Decisive Action’ Against China
On Friday, Donald Trump Jr. defended his father, President Donald Trump, and his response to China amid the coronavirus pandemic that is sweeping the globe. Trump Jr. urged people to read a Twitter thread that outlines the media’s response to Trump’s January announcement, where he stated that the United States would be barring individuals from China from entering the country.
“Afterwards I think you’ll want to thank @realDonaldTrump for taking such decisive action against Wuhan despite nonstop hate and nonsense from the media who ran with the Dem talking points,” Trump Jr. tweeted.
In the thread, Lyndsey Fifield — who is the social media manager for conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation — outlines the stream of negative criticism Trump received for his China travel ban as the country dealt with COVID-19.
Fifield noted that in one example, The Washington Post cited a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry — who pointed to the World Health Organization (WHO) and its suggestion against restricting travel or trade.
Per The Daily Caller, the WHO recently came under fire after Taiwan said they warned about the infectivity of the coronavirus in late December 2019, blaming the organization’s failure to act on its close relationship with China.
“Many in the scientific community beclowned themselves because their hatred for Trump blinded them — and does to this day,” Fifield wrote of the media’s overall response to Trump’s travel ban.
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??. pic.twitter.com/Fnl5P877VG
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) January 14, 2020
Although former President Barack Obama‘s Ebola czar, Ron Klain, slammed the Trump administration’s response to the pandemic, he said that the ban was the right decision. Klain noted that the restriction bought the U.S. time for dealing with the virus, as previously said by Dr. Anthony Fauci — an immunologist with the National Institutes of Health.
According to The Guardian, scientists remain skeptical of the effectiveness of the travel ban. Although the publication claims that epidemiologists believe early travel restrictions can “slightly slow outbreaks,” some public health experts reportedly believe that once a disease like COVID-19 begins making its way through a community, bans are “mostly futile.”
“Unfortunately, travel bans sound good,” said Bill Hanage, an epidemiologist at Harvard’s TH Chan School of Public Health. “But we’re way past the point where simply restricting travel is a reasonable response.”
Trump Jr. previously accused Democrats and the media of taking the side of China amid the coronavirus crisis. He pointed to China’s refusal of help from the CDC and the WHO, suggesting that anyone siding with China and believing what they say about COVID-19 should have their “heads examined.”
