Neither Biden Nor Sanders Would Have Saved American Lives With Travel Bans Like Trump Did By Margot Cleveland for The Federalist
A previously unreported detail concerning President Donald Trump’s decision to ban travel from China reveals Trump’s strong leadership in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic and exposes the risk this country would face if Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders were our commander in chief.
On Jan. 31, 2020, the Trump administration announced that foreign nationals who had traveled to China in the past 14 days would be denied entry into the United States. At the time, the virus — which originated in the Wuhan province — had begun to spread uncontrollably throughout the communist nation. Trump’s China travel ban reduced arrivals from the hotspot to the United States by 90 percent and “prevent[ed] more cases from China coming into the United States.”
Since then, most medical experts, as well as ordinary Americans, have viewed Trump’s prophylactic travel ban from China as a life-saving decision that slowed the spread of the Wuhan virus in the United States. But few realize that Trump’s call was a tough one that went against the bureaucratic academic models crafted to help inform his decision.
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Trump Rightly Went Against the Academic Model
A contentious exchange during the March 11 House Homeland Security Committee hearing on the coronavirus response revealed this reality. During the hearing, acting Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Ken Cuccinelli explained he had advised the president to ban travel from China even though “the academic model suggested not to do that.” Cuccinelli further stressed that “the president was well aware” that the existing models recommended against a China travel ban but that Trump nonetheless instituted the ban.
Amazingly, rather than compliment Cuccinelli and Trump for their leadership, Democratic Rep. Dina Titus of Nevada chastised the Trump administration for refusing to follow a flawed academic model:
I think you said earlier that you rejected the academic models that advised against travel boundaries or travel restrictions and gave the advice to the president to the contrary. What would make you think you could reject an academic model based on scientific study and evidence to advise the president? Was that like bad politics as opposed to good science? I think it probably [is that] this administration have very little respect for anything intellectual. And this is yet another example.
While Titus condemned Trump’s refusal to blindly follow an academic model, most Americans — if they knew of this detail — would likely applaud the president for his decisive leadership that likely saved countless American lives.
