Skip to main content

Obama calls Trump's response to coronavirus as 'chaotic' in leaked call

Former US president Barack Obama. Photo: Reuters
A leaked conference call between former US president Barack Obama with former members of his administration has described President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic as “chaotic”, a source said on Saturday.
Obama has largely kept out of the fray even as Trump has blamed him and his Democratic administration for a variety of problems related to having sufficient supplies to battle the pandemic that has killed more than 75,000 Americans.
But in his call on Friday with 3,000 members of the Obama Alumni Association, people who served in his administration, Obama urged his supporters to get behind Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, who is trying to unseat Trump in the November 3 election.
The contents of the call were first reported by Yahoo News. A source familiar with the call confirmed them to Reuters.
Obama said the election “is so important because what we’re going to be battling is not just a particular individual or a political party.”
“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,” he said.
He said this is one reason why “the response to this global crisis has been so anemic and spotty.”
“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 operationalised in our government,” Obama said.
“That’s why, I, by the way, am going to be spending as much time as necessary and campaigning as hard as I can for Joe Biden,” he said.
Obama’s office declined to comment.
White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said Trump’s response to the coronavirus “has been unprecedented” and has saved American lives.
She harked back to the Ukraine inquiry launched by Democrats in the US House of Representatives last year that led to House passage of articles of impeachment against Trump. The Republican-led Senate acquitted Trump early this year.
“While Democrats were pursuing a sham witch hunt against President Trump, President Trump was shutting down travel from China. While Democrats encouraged mass gatherings, President Trump was deploying PPE, ventilators, and testing across the country,” she said.
National polls show a tight race between Trump and Biden with six months to go until the election. Biden leads in several battleground states.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Donald Trump or Joe Biden? What will change for Asean after the US election?

https://twitter.com/mujeebsubhan786 https://web.facebook.com/mdmujeeb.subhan.5

Global coronavirus cases cross 40 million: Reuters tally

Worldwide coronavirus cases crossed 40 million on Monday, according to a Reuters tally, as the onset of winter in the northern hemisphere fuelled a resurgence in the spread of the disease. The Reuters tally is based on official reporting by individual countries. Experts believe the true numbers of both cases and deaths are likely much higher, given deficiencies in testing and potential under-reporting by some countries. The Reuters data shows the pace of the pandemic continues to pick up. It took just 32 days to go from 30 million global cases to 40 million, compared with the 38 days it took to get from 20 to 30 million, the 44 days between 10 and 20 million, and the three months it took to reach 10 million cases from when the first cases were reported in Wuhan, China, in early January. Record one-day increases in new infections were seen at the end of last week, with global coronavirus cases rising above 400,000 for the first time. There were an average of around 347,000 c...

Russia-Ukraine war reaches 100 days: By the numbers

The invasion of Ukraine has lasted 100 days, with no end yet in sight as Russia and Ukraine continue to fight for control of eastern Ukraine. Russia maintains that it is conducting a "special operation" in its neighboring country, and the "operation" has taken a significant toll on the Ukrainian people. Nearly 15 million people have reportedly fled their homes since the invasion started, according to the latest data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The data indicates that around 6.8 million Ukrainian residents have headed for neighboring countries while an additional (estimated) 8 million remain displaced within the country itself. The latest count shows that 3,627,178 people went to Poland, 989,357 went to Romania, 971,417 went to Russia, 682,594 went to Hungary, 479,513 went to Moldova, 461,164 went to Slovakia and 30,092 went to Belarus. Those numbers continue to climb. Most of the refugees are women and ch...