Obama: Trump’s administration has been a disaster during Covid-19 pandemic
CNN got a copy of a call Barack Obama had with his Alumni Association where he said the coronavirus pandemic is being appallingly managed by Trump.
On 26 April President Donald Trump used his Twitter account to claim: “People that know me say that I am the hardest working President in history,” adding that he has "gotten more done in the first 3 and a half years than any President in history.” That at least is Trump's own view of the response to his actions and decisions during the coronavirus pandemic.
For a number of weeks now Trump has been pushing the governors of the 50 states to reopen the economy and public schools in mid-May, with many of them listening to his calls, amid a tanking economy.
Despite his own incredibly high opinion of his decisions, the reality is that experts, scientists and the media have criticized nearly all of Trump’s decisions during the Covid-19 pandemic. The latest to weigh in is none other than former Democratic U.S. President Barack Obama, saying the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic in the US has been an "absolute chaotic disaster".
Trump’s administration has been an absolute chaotic disaster
On Friday, Obama had a call with the Obama Alumni Association, made up of people who served in the 44th president’s administration. On the call Obama made it clear he was extremely unhappy with the way the current President is handling the outbreak. CNN managed to obtain a copy of the call.
“What we’re 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, we’re seeing that internationally as well. It’s part of the reason why the response to this global crisis has been so anemic and spotty,” Obama said in the 30-minute recording.
Obama also tried to put himself in Trump’s position and admitted that the outbreak would have been bad under any circumstances and for any President in charge, “It would have been bad even with the best of governments. It has been an absolute chaotic disaster when that mindset, of ‘what’s in it for me’ and ‘to heck with everybody else’, when that mindset is operationalized in our government.”
As of Saturday afternoon, 77,034 people had died from complications of Covid-19 in the United States and 1.27 million tested positive, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website.