Fox Business guest: Trump's coronavirus response, “from the standpoint of history, is almost perfect. It looks like he was born for this moment”
Doug Wead: “Donald Trump seems to be beyond ideology”
Published
Citation From the March 16, 2020, edition of Fox Business' Varney & Co.
STUART VARNEY (HOST): You expect that President Trump will take more dramatic action in terms of restricting our freedom of movement and association? Do you think he's going to go for a national crackdown?
DOUG WEAD (PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN): What he's doing right now, from the standpoint of history, is almost perfect. It looks like he was born for this moment.
For one thing, he's transparent by nature. He gets into office, and opens the files on the Warren commission, and UFOs, and the assassination of Kennedy, when they criticized him for the phone call to Ukraine he makes that public. So we hear what he's thinking in real time, he tells us. That's very healthy. Woodrow Wilson didn't tell the American people anything and actually gave them misinformation which added to the crisis.
And Donald Trump seems to be beyond ideology. A conservative president might hesitate before putting the full weight of the federal government behind this. And a Democrat president might hesitate before allowing the private sector to become involved. Obama, as you know, had all these regulations against private clinics, who are now trying the vaccines. So with Trump, you've got a man born for this moment. He unites Walmart, and Target, and Pelosi, and Mnuchin. He's willing to use the government, he's willing to turn loose the private sector.
He wants to do good, that desire to be a good president. I think it's a healthy thing, even in spite of all the criticism.