Dear Mr. President

Dear Mr. President,

So, how are you? How’s your weekend going? Did you get to attend any Seders or are you planning on a large family dinner tonight for Easter? Do you attend religious services like we do, on Zoom? How are Melania and Barron doing?

Governor Cuomo lets us know how he is and talks a lot about how close he has become with his daughters. It’s really nice to hear him talk about these things as so many families are struggling to either get along without food, money or jobs and others are struggling to get along with each other. It would be nice to hear from you about how you manage family life.

I haven’t written for a few days, due to the 2 Seders or Zeders as we are calling them. Then it was the Sabbath and I rested. Actually, resting seems to be a part of most days. It does help pass the time but I think it is more because of feeling like we are in suspended animation. That’s probably not something you are experiencing because of how hard you are working. It seems like you have a four to six hour day on the phone. Then there is the daily two hours standing and talking or listening to others talk. It’s exhausting.

I wanted to discuss your cheerleading career. I used to be a cheerleader (decades ago) and I remember how difficult it was to get a crowd excited about our teams. Our football team was 0 and 9 (wins/losses) and our basketball team was 1 and 19. Even though our teams worked hard and played hard, they just were not as good as the other teams. Still, we cheered for them and their efforts and tried to keep our morale up by supporting each other.

I’d like to offer the following suggestion based on my experience. We were friendly to the other teams so maybe you can try being friendlier to other people like journalists, governors and mayors, even if they say mean things about you. It’s always better to rise above the petty comments. It makes you look like a better person.

Here’s another suggestion for you. It’s important to stretch. You spend a lot of time either sitting or standing at the podium. Please remember to stretch your physical muscles. Try to stand up straight and put a smile on your face, sometimes. It will help the cheerleading and make people think you are hopeful.

Remember the song “Whistle a Happy Tune”? You can stay honest about reality and give concrete examples of how things will improve (like changing the President’s Corona Virus Guidelines to Slowing the Curve for a bit longer, according to the health experts).

Another good way to stretch is to sit quietly and listen to others. Sometimes our inner voices lead us to bad decisions and hearing another point of view would be more helpful. Enjoy your family and this Easter Sunday. Go Team!

Dear Mr. President,

I won’t be able to watch your performance tonight. You probably already know that tonight begins Pesach (Passover), a very important holiday in the Jewish religion. We hope to be on Zoom for a family and friends Zeder (that’s a Zoom seder). Our daughter and son-in-law will lead this. I worry that the Internet or Zoom will crash because so many people will be on at the same time. Wish us luck.

Did you know that Easter is based on Passover? Passover begins on the first full moon after the Spring equinox. That’s why it’s different date every year. Easter is always the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring equinox. There are more connections but you probably already know them. If you don’t, you can look it up.

The number 4 appears over and over again in the course of the Seder (3,000 year old ritual for the first evening of Pesach or the first two evenings outside the land of Israel). There are 4 glasses of wine or grape juice, the story of the 4 different types of sons (now called the 4 children) and, maybe, most famously, the 4 questions. It’s so interesting, informative, important and actually incredible (see, 4 “I” words) that the story of Pesach and its’ rituals are as meaningful today as they always have been.

It’s a night of questions, family, traditions, caring about the poor and the hungry, especially if they are strangers or strangers in a strange land and remembering that we are all in this world together.

Even though this year’s Pesach is weird and challenging, it was even more so at other times of history. The stories of how Jews marked the holiday in the death and slave labor camps are particularly moving.

So, I want to wish your family, Jarod and Ivanka and their children, and all of the Jewish people on your staff and in your administration, a traditional Passover greeting, Chag Kasher v”Sameach. It means have a happy and Kosher Pesach.

Please take a moment and talk with them about the deeper meanings of the holiday. Maybe focus on the parables of the 4 children – The Wise Child, The Wicked Child, The Simple Child and the One Who Does not Even Know How to Ask.

Dear Vice President Pence,

I recently became pen-pals with the President but it’s really you that I wanted to write to. I know that you, and the President’s Corona Virus Task Force, have been working so hard over the last 3-4 weeks and hardly sleeping! On top of that, you have to stand for an hour and a half, too close to other people, in order to give us a short update on what happened today. On top of that, your boss, the President, has already stumbled over most of your lines!

I just wanted to let you know that the American People appreciate your efforts and those of your team. I know how much you thank us (12 times in 10 minutes) for following the “30 Days to Slow the Spread,” formerly known as “15 Days to Slow the Spread”. You only mentioned the President 8 times, so, you know, we win. You also work tirelessly and day and night to do everything in your power to get needed supplies to the front line workers. We also thank all the people working at hospitals and in the food service business from growers to truckers to everyone else trying to keep our country going. Thank you for thanking them.

I do have a few questions that I hope you can answer. First, you reported the numbers of masks, gloves, gowns and other equipment (sorry, I zoned out) but not how many are really needed? If you shipped 20 million pairs of gloves, how many more are needed? Do they need 200 million or what?

Next, the President has not been really clear about how you and the President’s Corona Virus Task Force go about getting the materials. Could you explain a bit more about what some people are saying that the states have found supplies, ordered them and then the Federal government takes them from them. Is this done by a tug of war or by some other method?

Last, and this is kind of gossipy….aren’t you upset that the President gets asked about all kinds of things, the World Health Organization, medicines and how they work, the price of oil and how states run their elections and you don’t?

Please get some sleep and move away from the President. Remember, social distance is one of the important strategies the American People can do for 30 Days to Slow the Spread.

Dear Mr. President,

I read that you were on TV again for hours over the weekend. Sorry I missed your incredible presentation of an update on the President’s Corona Virus Task Force’s work. I thought I would catch it today but I fell asleep for awhile so I didn’t get it all. I don’t know about you but I need a nap every day. There’s just so much going on and there is so much to do. How do you do it all without a nap? And VP Pence? You keep telling us that he is hardly sleeping. Now he’s also barely speaking.

Anyhow, I listened for about half an hour and I think I heard a lot of what you had to say last week. It didn’t sound like there was anything new to report. Maybe VP Pence was going to tell us something new but you got there first. Apparently, it’s going to be a tough week or week and a half even though “there is light at the end of the tunnel” and pretty much everything is “incredible”. It’s so sad that anything that is going so “great” can be twisted by the Fake News to be something mean or nasty. I can’t believe that reporters don’t want to be nice and to only ask mean questions. I did hear you yell at them and berate several by calling them names! Does Melania know that sometimes you call people names that are not “Be Best” words to say?

By the way, people have created so much humor during this awful time and it’s been great to laugh. Have you seen any of it? Like the one on a new version of how many days in a month? “Thirty days has September, April, June and November; all the rest have 31 except March which had 8,000”. Kind of funny, right?

I did hear that some of the health front line workers are not able to laugh about anything yet. They are too tired, scared and still don’t have enough protective equipment. Here’s another good one that a friend, Shira, sent to me that I wanted to pass on to you. It’s a letter from the word Incredible. I’ll quote a bit of it; “We self-respecting adjectives can’t take much more of your semi-literate babble. Each of us has served a specific purpose to convey singularity, the basic purpose of sophisticated lexicons since Antiquity. My colleague, TREMENDOUS, is miffed at being constantly misused. Our beloved descriptor, BEAUTIFUL, is falling about laughing. Poor PERFECT is on suicide watch.” It goes on but you get the point.

I encourage you to take a nap and allow the members of the President’s Corona Virus Task Force to update us on today’s information and we promise to remember the information from last week and from March, February and even January. You don’t need to repeat it. We are tremendous students. The best in the world. Nobody is better at remembering what you say and how you said it.

Dear Mr. President,

I hope all is well with you and your family and I hope all is well with all of our families. It isn’t true for so many people all around the world tonight. We wish everyone healing, physical, spiritual and emotional.

I was unable to hear much of what you had to say tonight. Instead I attended a Kabbalat Shabbat (welcoming the Sabbath) service on Zoom. This was my way of trying to heal us all.

In addition, tonight begins the Yarzeit (year anniversary) of the death of my mother, Simi Cutler. It’s hard to believe that a year has passed. We, her entire family, her friends and anyone who knew her, miss her so much. She was a wonderful, kind, funny and above all, loving person. I am so glad that she was able to model that behavior for all of us. I hope everyone who reads this letter to you has a person or people in their lives like my mother. Shabbat Shalom

Dear Mr. President,

I am exhausted. It’s now about 7:30 and you might still be talking; I don’t know, I quit awhile ago. We had a through the door visit with one grandchild and his parents. They are going on a “Bear Hunt”. Do you know that game? Anyhow, people are putting bears, penguins, other animals in their windows, porches and other places just for fun. Isn’t that a great idea? Do you have any more games or activities you did with your kids when they were young? Maybe the First Lady could tweet out some ideas. Parents are starting to realize that the jobs of working, parenting and teaching are long term, not temporary positions. Any ideas might be helpful.

Thanks to the Democrats, the 3rd bill to help with real time and real life economics, will start to get money to laid off workers and the small businesses. You have spoken about the “great American companies” that were doing “really really well” before the virus hit and they are also getting a boat load of help….Get it? A boat load of help for the cruise business. I guess that is okay but if they were doing so well don’t they have any money in their savings accounts?

The Admiral spoke about the supply chain problems and he seems to be on top of this. But then, we realized that the equipment and the product then goes on the open market. I think that may be part of the problem of actually getting the masks, gloves, gowns and other equipment into the hospitals. I think we (or at least me) were under the impression that the Defense Procurement Act would get the material both made and then delivered. It’s clear that the team is working hard, no one is sleeping, and they seem really competent. I mean that sincerely. I’m just really really sad that your administration didn’t start ramping up the effort to get supplies to hospitals about six weeks ago.

The last thing I want to thank you for is reminding us that this is not the time for politics. It’s a good message that you kind of blunted when the next sentence was about some witch hunts and the “people doing it are losing”. I don’t know who or what you are talking about but the first half of the comment (not the time for politics) was really good.

PS: It was nice to see Jarod. I don’t have a clue as to what he was talking about. He talks really fast so it was hard to catch everything he said. Maybe he has some ideas for games with children. Get some sleep.

Dear Mr. President,

What in the world happened tonight? I watched The President’s Corona Virus Task Force Briefing at 5:40 p.m EST and learned we are in a drug war with “bad actors”! And possible war with Iran! I listened to the army guy, the navy guy, some ambassador and the Attorney General (?why?) tell us about all the boats and guns and people already in place to stop the flow of drugs into our country. Why did you tell the bad guys the plans? And, why did you spend so much time (40 minutes) to let us know this? I think it is to demonstrate how well your administration can do more than one thing at a time. I am glad to know that. Still, It was a bit weird.

Finally, the President’s Corona Task Force finally came out to brief us on what happened today. Maybe they did, but I left the “briefing” after another hour or so and didn’t hear all the details. I did learn that we have almost 10,000 ventilators in the national stockpile that can be used when they are needed. Also, good to hear from you that “soon we will have more ventilators than we need and then, after we stockpile them, we can send them to other places”. It was also good to hear that “we have an excess of certain things and not enough of others”. I am still confused as to why the hospitals are still begging for more of everything in so many states. I think Walmart will help with something, not sure what.

But then you also told us about this war with Iran. Apparently, our great intelligence heard about a plan to attack American soldiers in Iran. But, you told them on Facebook, where you are #1(!), that “it’s not nice…don’t do it, this is not a heads up, this is a warning, because last time we hit them very hard in 5 massive sites and took out a lot of really bad guys and they will pay a bigger price if they do anything”.

We also learned that you might have to intervene with Russia and Saudi Arabia to get a deal on oil so that our oil companies are okay. Honestly, where do you find the time to do everything? And, Iran, they really want to make a deal but they were given very bad advice by Kerry. So, I was still wondering about what happened today with the Corona Virus war. I am still confused. Apparently, the great governor of Ohio used a local company to make and send 12 million gowns to the national stockpile although you want needed equipment to go right to the hospital and not even go to a warehouse. Also, large cargo planes are coming from all over the world with supplies. It was also a relief to learn that “soon a cure remedy, or even help or a vaccine” will be here and “it’s (the economy?) all going to go up very quickly or maybe slowly but it will all come back.” Whew.

VP Pence did speak for about 10 minutes and was able to say the word “president” 13 times and the words “American People” 12x. He might have given us more information but after an hour and a half of listening I left to have dinner. I do have a suggestion for the journalists that are present. Don’t ask dumb questions that have already been answered. Maybe the briefings could then be brief. Ask VP Pence when he will be completely honest and let us know that we don’t have the necessary tests, PPE, ventilators masks and other supplies that are needed and we won’t have them in time.

And, Mr. President, you have so much on your plate that I think you do not need to be at these briefings. They are exhausting.

Look what arrived in the mail today!

At first I thought the virus had been renamed as President Trump’s Coronavirus. But, of course, that can’t be right.

I was glad to see today’s event was done indoors as it was too windy yesterday and it messed up your hair. I also applaud your decision to let the doctors do most of the speaking. What they had to say was really sobering and frightening and I think you prefer to tell us about how great everything is going. You had them answer all the hard questions about fatalities. I think those numbers really terrify you as much as they terrify us. You try so hard to be upbeat about our country. At one point you mentioned “we will see things get better all of a sudden”. With all due respect, we all hope for that but the data doesn’t seem to point in that direction. You are very proud of the hard work of your administration. I agree that the armed forces and national guard and FEMA are working like crazy. Kudos to them.

You seem to work hard making phone calls to so many important people. There were 11 calls to leaders of communication companies as well as calls to governors and leaders of countries. That’s hours of phone time!!

It was good to see VP Pence again. I hadn’t heard him in a few days because my attention span is about an hour and he, apparently, spoke after that time. I only heard him speak for about 10 minutes but he did manage to mention you 28 times!! A new record.

This is a frightening time. Just tell us the truth. If we really don’t have enough equipment for right now or next week, tell us. If we have a 1000 masks or tests but need 10,000 or more, be straight. If governors say they need things, believe them. Please.

We pray for your friend in the hospital and all the others who are sick. We pray for their families and for our loved ones working on the “front lines”.

Dear Mr. President,

You really knocked it out of the park tonight! I think you might still be in a good mood from making the decision to relax on “opening up the country”, and “going back” (to normal?) and allowing more time to “Slow the Spread”. You were so thankful for all the good work and hard work and “incredible” (15x) work that you and your administration have done. Nobody would ever believe that it would be so “great”(25x!). And you were so appreciative and thankful to everyone (25x). It was nice to hear the positive things that are happening. It was also tremendous (8x) of you and our country to help other countries around the world by sending them “things” and “really good stuff” (some of it money).

You mentioned masks, ventilators and other things (not sure what they were) that have already been sent to many places. On the other hand, China and Russia have sent us “things”. Did you send them on to Italy or other places or did they go straight to our hot spots? That was a bit confusing. Maybe you can clear that up tomorrow.

It was nice to meet the “Greatest Business Executives” in the world. I guess I should go buy some Jockey socks, Proctor and Gamble cleaning products (I already use Tide) and maybe a new pillow. Do you think that the pillow man was punning us when he said his company was “uniquely positioned” to “adjust to the future”? He is such a huge fan of yours that you should bring him along to your next rally, whenever that happens.

One suggestion: If you are going to highlight a product, say a new Corona, test, maybe you could get a volunteer from the audience to actually take it rather than just showing us the box and taking another package out of the box. I’m really grateful that even though you could cause a panic better than the reporter, that you use your time in the spotlight to cheer us up.

An added bonus is giving reporters a new investigation to pursue….where are all the masks?

Dear Mr. President,

How are you doing? You actually looked more rested tonight! You also seemed somewhat calmer than you did a few nights ago. I think it might be because the doctors told you that the “Slow the Spread” recommendations need to be followed for at least another month. I bet that was kind of a relief because you knew that Easter (Passover) was too soon to let the country, even parts of the country, “open up”.

You used a new word tonight that I think deserves to be awarded the Word of the Day- “Aspirational”. Some people misunderstood your comment about great crowds in the churches on Easter Sunday. That was an “aspirational” statement. I’m glad that was made clear tonight. By the way, “incredible” is actually getting a new award, “Word of the Month”. It hit a record today of 20 times but I didn’t count the number of times other people used it. Also, you really let us know about all the “incredible” things that you and your people are doing (27 times) so we can really appreciate the hard work.

By the way, I mean this sincerely, the professionals are really doing so much. For the most part, since we haven’t lived through a pandemic in more than 100 years, you are correct in saying that “no-one has ever seen this or done what we’ve (you) done”.

Still, I do have some questions. Why do you think the hospitals are asking for more equipment? You mentioned, numerous times, that they used to use about 10,000 masks a month? It wasn’t really clear how often these were delivered. Anyhow, now they want 300,000! You suggest that journalists investigate this. Do you really think “are they walking out the back door” or “even worse”? It sounds like there might be a black market for masks. There might be a Pulitzer Prize for some journalist.

Another question, how is your family? We haven’t see our First Lady since the one video she made. Is she or your youngest son in the White House? Are they climbing the walls like so many other parents and children?

I missed seeing VPPence. Is he still in charge? I had to stop watching the briefing (wrong word to use as it is too long to be a brief) so I could have a Zoom happy hour with some friends.