Issued on: 10/05/2020 – 10:50Modified: 10/05/2020 – 10:50
Former President Barack Obama harshly criticized President Donald Trumps handling of the coronavirus pandemic as an “absolute chaotic disaster” during a conversation with ex-members of his administration, according to a recording obtained by Yahoo News.
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Obama also reacted to the Justice Department dropping its criminal case against Trumps first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, saying he worried that the “basic understanding of rule of law is at risk.”
More than 78,400 people with COVID-19 have died in the United States and more than 1.3 million people have tested positive, according to the latest estimates from the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
Obamas comments came during a Friday call with 3,000 members of the Obama Alumni Association, people who served in his administration. Obama urged his supporters to back his former vice president, Joe Biden, who is trying to unseat Trump in the Nov. 3 election.
“What were fighting against is these long-term trends in which being selfish, being tribal, being divided, and seeing others as an enemy — that has become a stronger impulse in American life. And by the way, were seeing that internationally as well. Its part of the reason why the response to this global crisis has been so anemic and spotty,” Obama said, according to Yahoo News.
“It would have been bad even with the best of governments. It has been an absolute chaotic disaster when that mindset — of whats in it for me and to heck with everybody else — when that mindset is operationalized in our government," he said.
White House press secretary responds
Trump has consistently defended and boasted of his response to the virus, saying that travel restrictions from China and Europe as well as social distancing guidelines have prevented far greater damage. “I think we saved millions of lives,” he said earlier this week.
Trump has criticized the Obama administration in relation to his own administrations response to the outbreak. Yet Trumps contention that his administration inherited “a broken system and a broken test” from Obamas is false; the novel coronavirus did not exist until late last year. In fact, the CRead More – Source
