Former President Barack Obama derided the Trump administration’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis in a recent phone call with alumni from his own administration, according to a report from Yahoo News, which obtained the audio.
Obama pointed to a mindset of selfishness that has become “operationalized in our government,” to explain why he believes it is important to support former Vice President Joe Biden’s bid for the oval office.
From Yahoo:
“This election that’s coming up on every level 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.
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. 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.
Though the death toll from coronavirus in the United States is climbing above 80,000, the current president got on Twitter on Sunday to say his government’s handling of the public health crisis is getting “great marks.”
The U.S. recorded about 12,500 deaths from the swine flu between April 2009 and April 2010, according to CDC estimates. But what are facts—or dead bodies, for that matter—in the face of the Trump administration’s commitment to not acknowledging reality?
When asked for a response to the statements made by Obama on the leaked phone call White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said, “President Trump’s coronavirus response has been unprecedented and saved American lives,” reported CNN.
In the phone call with his former White House staffers, Obama also referenced the recent dropped charges against former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who had pled guilty to lying to the FBI, as evidence of the risks currently facing America.