Veteran Hollywood actor Dennis Quaid praised President Donald Trump’s handling of the pandemic over the Wuhan coronavirus in a Daily Beast interview published Wednesday while promoting the launch of his new podcast “The Dennissance.”
“I think Trump, no matter what anybody thinks of him, is doing a good job at trying to get these states – and all of the American people – what they need, and also trying to hold our economy together and be prepared for when this is all over,” Quaid told the Daily Beast when pressed on the federal government failing to provide states with the amount of supplies requested.
Many have been quick to condemn the administration for not sending enough ventilators to New York as the state’s governor has requested, though the National Strategic Stockpile only had a fraction of what was asked for in storage. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Wednesday confirmed that General Motors has signed a $490 million contract with the federal government under the Defense Production Act invoked by Trump to manufacture 30,000 new ventilators to the national stockpile by August of this year.
When the reporter argued that Trump was slow to respond to the crisis as advisers warned, Quaid pointed out that Trump had implemented international travel bans early on while the outbreak worsened overseas.
“Trump did do the travel ban to China, and then to Europe very quickly afterward, and he was castigated by a lot of members of Congress, who were just getting out of impeachment, that it was racist what he was doing,” Quaid said. “It’s a good thing we had that travel ban at the time. You know, the world has never experienced this, and I don’t think it’s a time to be political.”
[Read a chronology of the Trump administration’s response to the Wuhan virus here].
Quaid also gave praise to the president and senior members of the administration giving daily press briefings on the crisis even as left-wing groups and media types push for the cable networks to stop airing them.
“I do appreciate that Trump is giving the briefings and on television every day giving out the information, and I think they have great people handling it,” Quaid said.
The Hollywood actor who starred in “I Can Only Imagine,” “The Parent Trap,” and “The Right Stuff” told the New York Post in 2018 he is an independent who has voted for candidates of both political parties.
Quaid has also been a pro-active patient-safety advocate since 2007 when his twin daughters almost fell victim to a medical accident where they were given an abnormally high dose of blood thinners. He testified on Capitol Hill in 2008 and producing several documentaries on health care.
Quaid is slated to play Ronald Reagan in an upcoming biographical drama of the 40th president, “Reagan.” Quaid played President Bill Clinton in the 2010 film “The Special Relationship.“
