Mike Huckabee

Friday, President Trump held a news conference in which he officially declared the COVID-19 coronavirus to be a national emergency. That quickly freed up about $50 billion worth of federal aid. This comes just two days after the World Health Organization declared it a pandemic. Also, in a move that shows how different this President is from previous Presidents (and how vastly different he is from those who seek to replace him), he announced that he had struck deals with some of America’s largest corporations, such as WalMart, Target, Google and CVS, to use their vast resources to assist in fighting the disease and helping Americans with procedures and testing. Instead of using the emergency as an “opportunity” to grow government, he’s employing the greater efficiency of the private sector in partnership with government.

Trump also announced that he’s waiving interest on federally-held student loans until further notice.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-waives-interest-on-federally-held-student-loans-until-further-notice

Another way Trump is different from any Democrat seeking to replace him is that he also declared Sunday to be a National Day of Prayer.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-sunday-national-day-of-prayer

Trump’s actions must have impressed Wall Street, since the Dow roared back by nearly 2,000 points, the biggest one-day gain since the 2008 meltdown, shortly after it took the worst drop since 1987.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/us-stocks-march-13-2020

Also, late last night, the House passed a bill providing emergency funding for dealing with the pandemic, after the Administration demanded a rewrite due to objections that House Democrats were larding up the bill with lefty wish list items, like taxpayer-paid abortions.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/house-oks-coronavirus-relief-bill-after-urging-from-trump-in-363-40-vote

Here’s the full text of Trump’s letter:

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/read-trump-letter-declaring-coronavirus-national-emergency-under-stafford-act

And full video of the press conference:

https://youtu.be/G6HbxcCb-7g

You can safely skip the Q&A from reporters at the end. It was mostly a lot of lame “gotcha” attempts by reporters who don’t seem to get that Trump is dealing with a life-or-death health crisis, and very effectively. This is not the time to try to undermine his efforts with your one-track-mind Trump Derangement Syndrome. As noted previously, even such rabid anti-Trump Governors as California’s Gavin Newsom and New York’s Andrew Cuomo…

https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/361358

…have praised Trump and his team for quickly providing them with everything they promised. I’m glad of this, but not that surprised: Governors may be politicians, but it's much more important to be pragmatic and work with whoever you have to in order to protect your state’s citizens. If actual Democratic politicians can put aside partisanship and acknowledge that Trump is doing a good job, maybe the amateur Democratic politicians in the media could try that as well.

When I see how many ways the media try to attack Trump (when one path fails, they try another, then another), it makes me think that COVID-19 may not be the most aggressive virus plaguing America today. For instance, Trump was called a racist, xenophobic incompetent for acting too quickly to shut down all travel from China. Once it became apparent that bought us precious time, they attacked him for not doing it soon enough. Now, they’re trying to circle back to the nonsense “racist” charge, but in a way that only makes themselves look hypocritical…

https://www.mrctv.org/blog/watch-34-times-media-said-wuhan-or-chinese-coronavirus-they-blame-gop

As for the claim that Trump was ignoring the coronavirus or not doing enough, Deborah Birx, the internationally known HIV/AIDS expert appointed by Trump to help coordinate his coronavirus response, said there has been “intense effort” put into bringing quality testing kits to people “at unprecedented speed,” adding, “I understand that a lot of this behind-the-scenes action in the last couple of weeks was invisible to the press and the American people.”

So she’s saying that Trump and his people were actually exerting intense effort to deal with the crisis, but the public might not have known it because they were putting their efforts into dealing with the crisis rather than trying to make themselves look good to the media.

I think I’ve just found another way that this President is very different from all the people trying to replace him!

Mike Huckabee

For the past three years or so, I’ve heard Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) constantly assail President Trump for not having the proper character or temperament to be President. But I’ve always felt that you could judge those things best by watching what someone does in a crisis.

So far in this pandemic, I have seen Trump move early and amid heavy criticism to try to stop people with infections from coming into the US (you can’t keep a virus out, but you can slow it down and buy precious time.) He’s appointed the best people possible and given them the power, budget and leeway to do what they think needs to be done. He’s taken actions that he knew would kneecap the economy and harm his biggest reelection selling point, but he put the good of America first and did it anyway (I could name some other politicians who would not have done that in an election year - and when faced with the situation, didn’t.) He's trying to walk a tightrope between making the dangers of the disease very clear and reassuring people that it will be all right so don't panic. And he’s reached out to the other Party, urging them to put partisanship aside and work together to deal with the crisis.

So…how has the other side responded? You know, the people with such high standards of “character” for others? Thus far, they have relentlessly attacked, mocked, criticized, second-guessed and undermined everything Trump has tried to do. They accused him of being racist for shutting down travel from China, then after it became clear that was a very smart move, they criticized him for not doing it sooner. They blamed his speech for the drop in the Dow, even though markets were plummeting worldwide before he ever even spoke, and there was nothing he could have said that would have been interpreted as good news for stocks.

They claimed that Obama would have dealt with a health crisis much better, even though he acted much more slowly in dealing with swine flu. Plus, his Administration spent several years and around $2 billion just to create a health insurance website that didn’t work.

Oh, and let’s not overlook the shameless, self-serving opportunism. Like House Democrats’ attempts to load up the emergency coronavirus funding bill with liberal wish list pork, including Nancy Pelosi’s attempt to sneak in taxpayer funding of abortion. Memo to Speaker Pelosi: the idea of this bill is to PREVENT death, not subsidize it.

https://www.westernjournal.com/report-pelosi-tried-using-bill-aimed-stopping-coronavirus-deaths-fund-baby-deaths-abortion/

Fortunately, the GOP Senate will have time to go through the House bill and disinfect it, since Mitch McConnell canceled next week’s scheduled recess:

https://www.westernjournal.com/mitch-mcconnell-cancels-senate-recess-continue-combating-coronavirus/

Joe Biden (or more likely, his staffers) rushed out a harsh criticism of Trump’s “lack of leadership” and a list of things that Biden would have been done, all of which have already been done by Trump. Well, all except the first thing, which was to insure that no bias against Asian or Pacific American peoples be tolerated. That’s the modern Democrats in a nutshell: so obsessed with identity politics that their #1 priority in dealing with a pandemic is to assume Americans will react to it like violent racists and virtual signal at us. I’d like to see the lab work that shows the virus cannot penetrate a thick layer of self-righteousness.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/joe-biden-blasts-trumps-coronavirus-response-then-plagiarizes-trumps-plan/

It’s also been noted how amazing it is that the solution to every crisis is to implement whatever the left has already been pushing for. For many, this crisis has been the perfect excuse to push for full government control of health care (even as they are attacking the government under Trump for “botching” the handling of health care.) Example: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tried to claim that South Korea got the infection under control because they have “single payer health care.”

https://twitchy.com/sarahd-313035/2020/03/12/who-wants-to-tell-her-aoc-reveals-one-major-reason-south-korea-is-coping-well-with-covid19-and-its-100-crap/

Twitter users quickly reminded her that so does Italy, and they’re so overwhelmed that hospitals are denying care to elderly people and sending them home. Should we call the officials who have to break that news to the elderly Italians “death panels”?

https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/elderly-will-be-denied-intensive-care-as-coronavirus-overwhelms-italys-national-health-system-experts-warn/

As for the news media, I’m sure you know how well they reacted to Trump’s call for unity. For instance, CNN’s Don Lemon nearly blew a gasket when he couldn’t get even noted Trump critic John Kasich to attack Trump’s handling of the crisis.

https://www.westernjournal.com/don-lemon-loses-trumps-coronavirus-speech-john-kashich-set-straight/

We’ve also had a rash of media outlets declaring that Trump or anyone else who describes the disease as the “Wuhan virus,” the China virus or even a “foreign virus” is racist and xenophobic. In doing this, they’re carrying water for the communist government in Beijing, which started calling that racist because even though it was 100% accurate, it was bad for their phony image. It's actually no more racist than calling linguini "Italian food."

https://spectator.us/covid-19-terrifying-weapon-political-propaganda/

This prompted conservatives on social media to pull up dozens of clips of the PC talking heads using those exact same terms over the past month. Here’s a sample compilation:

https://twitchy.com/sarahd-313035/2020/03/12/cnn-stars-in-absolutely-brutal-supercut-featuring-media-firefighters-feverishly-lobbing-racist-covid19-bombs-video/

I was genuinely hoping that the media and the Democrats would heed Trump’s call to put America first, set aside partisanship and pull together (some, like California Gov. Gavin Newsom, really are.) But I guess that for some of them, that’s like expecting a duck not to quack. It’s disgusting that they can see something that’s causing so much human suffering as an opportunity to score cheap political points. But their attempts are so obvious – and so repulsive – that this coronavirus episode might prove very costly to them in the long run.

https://spectator.org/politicizing-coronavirus-will-cost-dems-the-house/

Mike Huckabee

There is no subject so serious that a limerick can’t be made about it:

There once was a fellow named Biden

Whose capacities seemed to be slidin’

His party said, “Wait!

Old Joe can’t debate!

So we’ll just have to keep him in hidin’!”

His confusion and poor comprehension

Have long been attracting attention

They've got a fresh face

To put in his place

If he just makes it to the convention

That’s not meant to ridicule Joe Biden himself --- far from it --- but rather the deceitful Democrat Party leaders who are using him, actually victimizing him. Who truly believes the party’s goal is to put former Vice President Biden, nearing 80 and appearing to struggle with cognitive challenges, in the Oval Office, for real? Early yesterday, I wrote about their need to keep Biden out of the public eye after his victories in Tuesday’s primary elections. I speculated there might not be any debate appearances in his future, even the one scheduled for this Sunday with the other Last Old White Man Standing, Bernie Sanders. Since then, there have been some new developments.

Recall that some prominent Democrats were already calling for Sanders to drop out and Biden to be declared the nominee. (Never mind the unfairness to all the voters in states that haven’t had their primaries yet.) Party leaders say they need to do this to focus on beating President Trump in November, burt we know what this is really about. At this point, they can’t risk letting Biden try to match wits with anyone, let alone Donald Trump. Whatever the reason for his decline (I’m not a doctor), his behavior has become so bizarre that his campaign is limiting his speaking engagements to seven minutes.

But these debates can go on for two hours. And, unlike earlier debates in which the stage (and face time) was shared with a number of candidates, they’ll be one-on-one, with lots of questions and back-and-forth.

Obviously, the Biden campaign and the DNC do not want him to appear with Bernie at Sunday’s event. Already they’ve renegotiated so that the candidates may remain seated throughout. Because of coronavirus concerns, they’ve even dispensed with the live audience. And you know they would prefer to cancel the debate entirely –- to do what James Carville suggested and just “shut this puppy down.”

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/pressure-grows-on-bernie-sanders-to-drop-out

In an announcement Wednesday, Sanders showed that he is less than cooperative.

https://news.yahoo.com/sanders-says-hes-staying-2020-174228022.html

But the threat of the coronavirus is being taken very seriously, with Trump in a late-Wednesday Oval Office address announcing that it had been classified by the World Health Organization as a pandemic (meaning epidemic on a global scale). He outlined point-by-point the aggressive actions being taken, saying, “We’re marshaling the full power of the federal government and the private sector to protect the American people.” While reassuring young and healthy people that their “risk is very, very low,” he cautioned the elderly and those with underlying conditions to be “very, very careful” and “to avoid all nonessential travel and crowded areas.”

The threat is real, but watch how Biden’s campaign now gets to use it to avoid campaign events entirely. Why, it’s not to shield Biden from scrutiny –- it’s to protect the voters! Never mind that it also means Biden won’t have to answer questions, explain his positions or try to connect with people without insulting them. As people now try to avoid crowds, this political contest may take on a dangerous new theme: “Suppose they gave a presidential campaign and nobody came?”

As the Democrats say, “Never let a crisis go to waste.” This situation makes it a lot easier for Biden to limp along to the convention in June, which might be the most convenient time for the DNC to suddenly “realize” that he's having to struggle with significant mental lapses, that Sanders is unelectable in a general election, and that they need to draft a replacement right away “for the good of the country.” Someone strong and electable who can hit the ground running. Someone with the best chance of beating Trump. That person will either replace Biden outright or be put on the ticket with him, as President-in-waiting.

It occurs to me that if the virus is still active by late spring or early summer, they might not have a convention at all.

Campaign events are already being canceled, on both the left and right. President Trump announced Wednesday that he has canceled a couple of events out West. Both Biden and Sanders have already canceled rallies. As Laura Ingraham pointed out on her show Wednesday night, these cancellations benefit one candidate in particular, the one who has the most to lose: Joe Biden. A former staffer for Bernie, Tezlyn Figaro, said on Laura’s show that “Joe Biden will certainly benefit because we don’t have to worry about him threatening to take somebody out back.” Touche.

But she also said this might benefit Sanders as well because he wouldn’t have to explain why people weren’t coming out to his rallies. “I think people are finding out that folks are just not socialists,” she said. “I worked with Sen. Sanders...I joined him in 2016 for very different reasons, but it’s important for folks to understand that this country just, they just don’t want to elect a socialist. So Sen. Sanders has to take some responsibility for that as well.”

If that’s the view of someone who actually worked for him, it should be more obvious than ever that Bernie won’t be the nominee. It follows that if he’s unelectable and Biden is incapable, the Democrat party is going to go with someone else.

Figaro also commented on what I reported yesterday, the call by Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina to cancel the rest of the debates and end the primary process right where it is, calling his suggestion “extremely insulting.” She said it was disrespectful, “even to those who want to vote for Joe Biden” and also “to American democracy.” We’re at a point where half of the delegates are yet to be earned, she said, and this decision shouldn’t be made by “just one or two folks at the top.” Biden’s supporters know he makes “consistent gaffes,” she said, “and they still voted for him anyway.”

She cited #DemExit as trending among people who are upset about this push to shut the process down and give it to Biden. (Of course, I’ve talked-up the fabulous #WalkAway movement, which was already going on.)

https://www.walkawaycampaign.com/about-more

https://www.newsweek.com/michigan-votes-demexit-trends-sanders-supporters-threatening-leave-dem-party-if-biden-wins-149156

Figaro made some excellent, well-reasoned points (she is a FORMER Bernie staffer). I wonder, though, if Biden’s supporters will still feel as eager to vote for him if they see much more of the bizarre behavior he increasingly exhibits. That behavior is why those “one or two folks at the top” will do everything possible to hide him and promote him in absentia, and the media will help them. They would have done this even without the coronavirus, but the growing threat of contagion makes it so much easier now.