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Marlow Stern asked Dennis Quaid what he thought of Trump and the federal government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, and added, “It does look like hospitals are criminally undersupplied right now.”
Dennis Quaid responded, “Well, to tell you the truth, I think the president is handling it in a good way.”
He continued, “We see him on television every day, he’s involved, and the travel ban early on was a great idea — which he did in spite of protest about that. But I don’t want to get into the protest.”
“We were trying to defeat the virus at its source at that time, and as I heard yesterday, Arnold Schwarzenegger and a few other people are taking planes over there and shipping a lot of it back.” Quaid continued.
“The states are also responsible for having stockpiles of their own, according to their own needs.”
Quaid said, “You know, New York, I really feel for those people and I think they’re doing their best to get them everything they need.”
“We’ll figure that all out when it’s over, as far as whether anybody died because they couldn’t get a ventilator in a hospital. I haven’t heard reports about that, have you?”
Stern responded, “Yeah.” “There have been reports about people dying because there aren’t enough ventilators in New York.”
Quaid said, “New York had a chance to buy thousands of ventilators at a very good price like two years ago, but I don’t want to get into the finger-pointing, because Cuomo is doing a great job out there working for the people of his state.”
“And 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,” he added. “I don’t want to get into petty arguments about it.”
Stern then asserted that the United States government did not act quickly enough in response to the pandemic.
Quaid responded, “Oh, I think that we did too, though. As soon as we found out what the threat was … China wasn’t really revealing to the rest of the world what was going on.”
“Five million people I heard had fled the Wuhan province before they had quarantined it, and were all over the world and allowed to come to this country,” he continued. “There was no warning whatsoever. The virus probably started back in November, and we didn’t learn about it until January.”
“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 the impeachment, that it was racist what he was doing,” Quaid said.
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He then reiterated that he appreciated the way Trump and his administration have been keeping Americans informed with daily briefings and the “great people” the president has handling the crisis.
Quaid concluded, “Just one more thing outside of that: Despite presidents, Congress and political parties, this is the United States of America, and we’re a very adaptable people in situations like this, and I think we’re all going to get through it. My heart goes out to everyone.”
The actor launched a new podcast on Wednesday, dubbed “The Dennissance.” According to the Daily Beast, it will feature Quaid “chopping it up with his noteworthy pals — upcoming guests include Billy Ray Cyrus, Billy Bush, Lance Armstrong, and Logan Paul — and, hopefully, showing listeners a side of them that they don’t normally see.”
