Former President Barack Obama stated he gave ex-President Donald Trump a pandemic playbook when Trump took workplace — however he disregarded it.
“He ignored it,” Obama stated throughout a rally for Vice President Kamala Harris in Las Vegas on Saturday. “And three years later, a pandemic hits.”
He stated the Covid-19 pandemic was a “generational pandemic” and that any president would have had a tough time earlier than noting how the US’ dying charge in comparison with nations like Canada that responded proactively to the worldwide outbreak.
“However in case you have a look at a rustic like Canada, their per capita dying charge was 40% decrease than it was right here in the US. So simply do the maths. That’s greater than 400,000 individuals,” Obama stated. “Individuals’s grandmothers, individuals’s fathers, individuals’s mothers who would have been alive if Donald Trump had simply paid consideration and tried to observe the plan that we gave him.”
He continued, saying it does matter and makes a distinction to have a president who’s “competent,” “cares about you” and “listens to people who find themselves consultants in these areas.”
“When you hear someone say it doesn’t matter, it does matter,” Obama added. “And sooner or later, it’s going to make a distinction to them.”
In early 2020, then-Senate Majority Chief Mitch McConnell (Republican, Kentucky) claimed that the Obama administration didn’t go away any pandemic playbook. Quickly after that, Ronald Klain, the White Home Ebola response coordinator from October 2014 to February 2015, posted the playbook on social media, whereas Nicole Lurie, an Obama administration official, confirmed its existence.