“WE DID IT THE RIGHT WAY”
by Sharon Rondeau
(Apr. 11, 2020) — At the opening of Saturday night’s “Justice with Judge Jeanine,” President Trump joined the host by phone to deliver a message in recognition of Easter on Sunday and to honor “all those who have perished” in the coronavirus pandemic.
“As you turn to reflection and prayer in your own relationship with God during this Holy Week, what is your prayer, and what is your message of faith for Americans?” Jeanine asked.
“Well, I love the people of our country, and we are bringing our country back,” Trump responded. “I want to pay my deepest love and respect to all of the families and friends of those who perished so sadly; it was so incredible how it came upon us, this invisible –I call it — this invisible enemy, and it’s just a terrible thing,” Trump responded.
He promised to “rebuild” the economy “again” “in honor of all those who perished.”
Jeanine characterized Easter as “the beginning, a new life for many Christians.” She asked if he views the anticipated reopening of the economy as “a renaissance.”
“Well, I think we have a really great chance at that,” he replied, referring to the Paycheck Protection Program which launched April 3 with the purpose of keeping small businesses’ employees afloat until they are able to return to work. “I think we’re going to have just a tremendous surge; I think it’s going to be like a rocket ship; I really believe that,” Trump said.
“With all of that, we still have to remember all of the people that perished,” he continued. “We did it — we did it the right way; we took care of social distancing and all of the things, words that nobody every heard before, frankly, and phrases; but if we didn’t do that, if we would have bulled through it, you could have had, you know — there were estimates [of] 2.2 million people. Well, if you cut that in more than half and you said a million and cut that in half and you say 500,000, it just would have been unacceptable. So we’ve all had to go through a lot; the people of our country have gone through a lot, but we did it the right way…”
He said that estimates now show that the number of deaths will be “coming in on the very, very low side; really, below the lowest side of the curve of death, and it’s a horrible thing…”
He acknowledged that the coronavirus had inflicted “a lot of great, great serious pain” but predicted that “we’ll be back bigger and better and stronger than ever before; you watch.”
Jeanine asked why Trump sees “an obligation” to help other countries with their coronavirus responses. “We’re helping Italy; we’re helping Spain; we’re helping other countries as much as we can,” he replied, then pivoted back to domestic efforts, including the building of hospitals by the Army Corps of Engineers and the deploying of two U.S. Navy hospital ships to Los Angeles and New York, respectively. “You look at all of the things we’ve done; it’s been incredible,” he said.
When Jeanine recounted Trump’s words of Friday that the timing of the decision to reopen the country “will be the hardest” decision he has ever made, he agreed and further said, “…I’ll be basing it on a lot of very smart people, a lot of professionals — doctors and business leaders…and it’s going to be based on a lot of facts and a lot of instinct, also. Whether we like it or not, there is a certain instinct to it…We have to bring our country back.”
The decision will involve “politics and business and medical” and will come “fairly soon,” he said.