Denver’s Mayor Warned Residents Not To Travel For Thanksgiving – Before Getting On A Plane

Denver Mayor Michael Hancock tweeted this morning that residents should avoid Thanksgiving travel – and then 30 minutes later got on a plane.

Mayor Hancock had urged Denver city staff “to refrain from travel this Thanksgiving holiday” as well, offering his own sacrifice that his family would be “cancelling our traditional gathering of our extended family.” He didn’t tell them that he was still going to fly to Houston and on to Mississippi to be with family.

A spokesperson argued he’s not being hypocritical at all, that he normally has a large family dinner for Thanksgiving and this time he’s just going to fly to his daughter’s home – and that if he didn’t do that, she’d have to fly to see him. He’s actually a Covid hero because he’s spending time with fewer people than normal, and some travel was inevitable whether he or his daughter did it.

As he has shared, the Mayor is not hosting his traditional large family dinner this year, but instead traveling alone to join his wife and daughter where the three of them will celebrate Thanksgiving at her residence instead of having them travel back to Denver,” a statement from the mayor’s spokesperson reads. “Upon return, he will follow all necessary health and safety guidance and quarantine.

Lest anyone think this is a partisan issue, he’s been criticized by a fellow Colorado Democrat.

Finally he was forced to offer a ‘politician’s apology’, not saying what he did was wrong but apologizing to those who feel that he did.

The Mayor’s trip is being compared to California Governor Gavin Newsom’s French Laundry dinner, which was against the guidance Newsom had been giving residents of his state. And when called on it, the Governor claimed the meal was safe because it was held outdoors. Except that it wasn’t.

From the Surgeon General and Dr. Anthony Fauci telling Americans not to wear masks at the start of the pandemic, even though they knew masks were valuable (but didn’t want people competing with governments to buy them) to the CDC and FDA blocked testing so we didn’t know the extent of the virus spread in March it’s little wonder that Americans don’t trust authorities during the pandemic.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Very similar to flight attendants that threaten paying customers on flights to wear masks and their’s come off 15 minutes into flight.

  2. @ BlackHill — Trump does nothing but lie. ie, lie, lie. He is a fraud. Wake up and see it, or send him some more money so he can go play golf on your dime. The Denver mayor should resign.

  3. What these incidents really show is that the blanket restrictions politicians impose are unreasonable so they are widely ignored. The restrictions would have us all living like hermits, which may be effective and ok in the minds of lawmakers but is not acceptable either to much of the population or to their elected representatives. All that these cases demonstrate is that the representatives are too cowardly to admit it and too ineffective to come up with something which will work.

  4. @Gene, Your logic that If I don’t like democrats, I should be a Trump fan is pathetic at best. Grow up and learn there are people with different views. Any official be it from any party who suggest, people not to do certain things but go on to do it should be removed ASAP. Be it California Gov or NJ Governor or MI Governor. So many politicians and governors acting like Hilter and shreading our US consitution but hey your hatred for a person is more important so all their immoral and unethical acts don’t matter right?

  5. People are really tired of posts like Blackhill’s that politicize everything and say nothing. It’s like the Gong Show, and these clowns keep swinging away.

  6. @Gene, a hypocrite is a hypocrite and calling out hypocrisy is not a reflection on one political views. Take Illinois’s governor, multi-billionaire JB Pritzker, he spends weeks telling Illinoisans not to travel, to turn in our neighbors is we suspect they have more than 10 people in the private home. Meanwhile behind the scenes he was flying this family and closes friends down to his mansion in Florida for Thanksgiving. Pritzker himself was suppose to leave Illinois earlier this week but someone in his administration leaked his secret plans to the press. Needless to say that was a really interesting press conference, where Pritzker was more upset that his travel plans were leaked to the press saying he has never in 25 years spent Thanksgiving away from his wife. To which a reporter followed up by asking; Why then did you send your wife, children, and many of your closed friends to Florida in the first place when you are telling everyone else in Illinois not to travel at all or have more than 10 people in their house?

    I stated this before while commenting on a different article I am an independent, and Coronavirus has really opened my eyes to shear level of hypocrisy on the democratic side. The national Media want people to believe that democrats are taking COVID seriously while Republicans are not. What I love about local media or media unaffiliated to a national brand is they don’t have an agenda they put it all out there and there have been more democrats caught here in Illinois breaking COVID rules that they themselves are responsible for putting in place than republicans. Stop using this pandemic as a means to try and control peoples daily lives.

  7. Making this a partisan issue, as the commenters above me have done, is odd.

    This is an issue of IQ which is simply low among the general American population regardless of political party.

    By the way it’s far better for governers to give a public health order and violate it themselves, than for governers to not give an order at all. Most rules are about compliance in general terms not absolute terms. Penis

  8. It doesn’t matter who you voted for, the virus will infect you no matter if you voted Green, Republican or Democrat. Being hypocritical is bad for ANYONE, and we WILL see increased numbers in 3 weeks or so…due to PEOPLE (regardless of political party) not being able to give up 1 holiday to stay healthy. This will be my first Thanksgiving with less than 5 people…because I want to keep my family healthy.

  9. @Sam, Thanks for your comments. Calling wrong as wrong is not politicizing.In case you did not read my previous comments. Here you go, Constitution is the supreme law of the land. It is wrong to issue unconsitutional orders. Like what most democrat governors have been doing throughout the pandemic. Pandemic did not cancel our Constitution. I do not see any republican governors issuing such unconstitional orders. Feel free to correct me.
    Second, if there is any rule for a citizen, it applies to politicians as well, especially those who put that very rule in the 1st place. There are certain rules in my house for the kids, but my spouse and myself keep those rules foremost so the kids can take us as an example to follow. How good are the rules when even those created such rules don’t follow them?

  10. I think a reasonable person who has been following pols of both parties would recognize that hypocrisy is not confined to any party, but, rather, is all too often the default position of politicians.

  11. You didn’t mention the regional carriers and problems with shortage of employees. Much if the general public don’t realize they are flying in a plane with “Delta” on the side owned and operated by a wholly separate company. Many of those airlines have shutdown or do not have the manpower to cover scheduled flights.

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