I have just made a call to Congresswoman Stefanik. I have demanded — yes, I demanded — to know when she knew about COVID-19. For three months she has had her phone town halls. I know; I have been on every one of the three. Once I got to ask a question.

I may not have called her, but because of this in an online newspaper: “McConnell’s Excuse For Trump’s Botched Coronavirus Response.” His reason our president could not tell us the TRUTH about it: because of the impeachment going on TV. THE IMPEACHMENT! He had rallies. He could have had an on-the-spot telling while he was at one of his times golfing. But this was not important enough to him to tell us what was going on?

This does not explain why he lied and said it was only 15 people, they were being watched. This does not explain his going on to: It was just a FLU; it would be gone when warm weather came. It would be gone by April. Umm, folks, April is here. It is not gone. He told us lie after lie about COVID-19 for months, and mcconnell (small “m” because right now I do not respect him) says it is because of the Impeachment going on. He could not get a TV station to cut into it. LIE!

He could have had the trial broken into at any time to tell us the TRUTH. There is no excuse he can use why he held the truth of this from us. How many of you remember when JFK was killed? Not sure about you, but I learned about it in the classroom. A good many things have been told to us by presidents who, whatever it was, had TV broken into and told us. So I AM NOT going to take that this president did not tell us sooner because the impeachment was going on.

I’m not sure if you remember Stefanik said “WORDS MATTER.” She said this many times. These are McConnell’s words from the news bit: “McConnell on Tuesday claimed the House impeachment of Trump and the subsequent Senate trial ‘diverted the attention of the government’ away from the developing public health crisis ‘because everything, every day, was all about impeachment.'”

So which would you had wanted to know MORE? Which would you had wanted told MORE? How many of you would have been OK with had the president broken in and told us what was really going on? We are where we are for many reasons — most are the government’s fault — but the person who is suppose to protect us failed. He did not say what had to be when it had to be. You don’t have to take my word, this is the link to McConnell’s news bit: https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/mitch-mcconnell-trump-coronavirus-excuse-080429819.html.

And just so you know how important this was to our president, how much our health meant to him, he went to nine rallies in which he started to call this a Dem hoax … and six times golfing. Every time he left to go anywhere, was there not a group of news men there to try and ask questions? He would not had to break into anything on TV. He had the news men in front of him.

The Trump administration ignored and eventually disbanded a White House office dedicated solely to pandemic preparedness that was established by President Obama.

So is there an excuse/lie you can be OK with as to why WE were not told sooner of this coming, or why we were told lie after lie after lie about it? Because he knew in January this was bad, and he said nothing. He knew while he was having his Super Bowl Party. Yes, I’m ticked. This is ruining lives, and he said nothing, so things could have been done better then it was.

Our lives are now in a state I never thought I would ever see, all because of LIES from a person we should have been able to believe our lives meant something to him.

So Stefanik, when did you know, and I want the truth because Words Matter. And lies are always found out.

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Cynthia Merrick lives in North Lawrence.