Day 1,172: Trump blames Obama for not creating a COVID-19 test and other nonsensical things
In speaking about the coronavirus circling the globe and wreaking havoc on the U.S., Donald Trump has repeatedly professed a variation of “no one could see this coming,” including during a press briefing Sunday. Trump rhetorically asked the reporters, “Did anybody in this room think a thing like this could happen?”
Trump is claiming that a pandemic was wholly unforeseeable.
Yet Trump repeatedly blames Barack Obama’s administration for — wait for it — not seeing a pandemic coming.
The Obama administration is held to a standard of having to be omnipotent, while Trump’s is allowed to wear a blindfold.
But the Obama administration — in addition to other past presidents and Trump’s own administration— clearly did see the potential of a pandemic coming and tried to prepare the Trump administration as such. It was Trump that disbanded task forces and global health staffs for no real reason shortly after taking office.
On top of that, Trump is blaming the Obama administration for an inadequate stockpile of certain equipment despite Trump giving away a huge chunk of that stockpile to China. But Trump has been in office for 39 months. Surely, he could have done something to cure any deficiency. At some point, blaming a predecessor doesn’t make sense. Trump doesn’t get to take credit on Day 1 for the economy and get to blame Obama on Day 1,172 for not stockpiling supplies for something “no one saw coming.”
Moreover, Trump recently lamented his administration “inherit[ing]” from Obama COVID-19 tests that were “broken.”
But the “19” in “COVID-19” — the disease caused by the coronavirus — means the disease originated in 2019. Trump’s argument is as nonsensical as someone blaming Trump in 15 years for not developing a test in 2020 for a disease that literally will not exist until 2035.
Trump’s m.o. is to point the finger at someone else and shout that it’s their fault, never his. This time around, Trump is swearing that he has always taken the coronavirus seriously, despite all evidence to the contrary. The response by Trump to a disease that will kill tens of thousands of Americans continues to be nonsensical, horrifying and juvenile.
1,172 days in, 290 to go
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