“Former President Barack Obama delivered searing remarks on Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus crisis, alleging it as ‘an absolute chaotic disaster’ during a private conference call on Friday night with his Alumni group of 3000 people who worked for him in the White House,” CNN has learnt.
More than two months into what President Donald Trump calls a “war” against COVID-19, his administration’s efforts to combat the deadly disease, along with its disastrous effects on the U.S. economy, have created more problems than they have solved.
“Any president would have been challenged by the enormity of this crisis, but when the mindset – of ‘What’s in it for me’ and ‘to heck with everybody else’ operationalizes in a government it leaves a nation in shambles,” he said.
He also reacted to the highly unusual step backed by Trump for dropping charges against Michael Flynn, the president’s first national security advisor by the justice Department.
“What we tend to fight is not a person or any party, we are fighting against social woes, these long-term trends prevailing in American life in which being selfish, being tribal, being divided, and seeing others as an enemy has been part and parcel of the governance. It’s part of the reason why the response to this global crisis has been so anemic and spotty,” said Obama during the Friday call.
According to CNN, after formally endorsing Biden last month, Obama said he would be deeply involved in the campaign to help Biden who is trying to unseat Trump in November 3 election, although he has generally kept a low profile on current political events.
His remarks on Friday night were the latest example of that effort, telling the Obama Alumni group: “I am hoping that all of you feel the same sense of urgency that I do.”
However, Trump has consistently defended and boasted of his response to the virus, living in his own self-chosen bubble of denial “I think we have saved millions of lives,” he stated earlier this week.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany did not mention Obama directly in a response to his remarks and purportedly claimed “President Trump’s response has been unprecedented and saved American lives. While Democrats were following a sham witch hunt against President Trump, he was shutting down travel from China”.
“While Democrats encouraged mass gatherings, President Trump was deploying PPE, ventilators, and testing across the country,” she added.
The USA has been the hardest hit by the pandemic in terms of number of fatalities – 78,700 have died while more than 1.3 million population is infected as of now.
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