The media had a complete meltdown when President Trump was discharged from Walter Reed on Monday, arguing the White House should be evacuated because it’s a public health threat to staff with him in it. “This man’s irresponsibility is a national shame,” a Financial Times editor said. Then, when Trump tweeted that Americans shouldn’t be “afraid of Covid,” they really lost it. Tell that to the more than 200,000 families who have lost loved ones from it, they argued. A CNN national security analyst said Twitter should remove the tweet for being a “public safety risk.”
But for former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson, the president’s response to Americans, telling them that they shouldn’t let this virus dominate their lives, was “maybe the smartest comment [Trump] has ever made.”
“For too long we have let this virus - and the media’s hysteria around it - dominate us,” he continued. “We need to take back our lives, our schools, and our whole world.”
Maybe the smartest comment @realdonaldtrump has ever made. For too long we have let this virus - and the media’s hysteria around it - dominate us. We need to take back our lives, our schools, and our whole world. https://t.co/gg02p3wgiM
— Alex Berenson (@AlexBerenson) October 5, 2020
Berenson appeared on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” to explain more.
"That might be the most presidential thing this president has ever said," Berenson noted. "He's not actually saying 'Don't be afraid of Covid.' He's saying don't be afraid of one another. Because this is a respiratory virus. It spreads between people. And the only way to make it go away permanently is to lock us all away permanently. And that can't happen. That is not compatible with life."
The author of “Unreported Truths About COVID-19 and Lockdowns” recalled what it was like to walk around an empty New York City at the start of the pandemic.
"Six months ago, even then, that response really didn't make sense but there were reasons for it," Berenson explained. "But we are six months on and we know that if you believe the [World Health Organization] and 750 million people have been infected with this, that the death rate is about 1 in 1000... if you believe in the CDC numbers, it might be 997... it is a tiny death rate. And we have gone crazy and we have sacrificed our kids and we have sacrificed society and Donald Trump walked out of that hospital today and said what needed to be said. We have to stop being so afraid of this."
Berenson couldn’t figure out how a country that “put people on the moon” and had the “first manned flight” could be so afraid of “this rather dismal virus.”
“I do not understand it and we have to get out of this," he said.