Former President Barack Obama is using his considerable star power while campaigning for Vice President Kamala Harris to remind everyone of how Donald Trump destroyed the economy he was given and how badly he mishandled his administration's response to the COVID-19 outbreak in the early months of 2020.
In Las Vegas on Saturday, President Obama told a packed crowd that he gave Trump a "pandemic playbook" during the peaceful transfer of power when Trump took office — but naturally, Trump disregarded it.
“He ignored it,” Obama said to boos from the crowd. “And three years later, a pandemic hits.”
President Obama stressed the gravity of Trump's lack of action, saying "It does matter and makes a difference" to have a President who is “competent,” “cares about you” and “listens to people who are experts in these areas.”
“If you hear somebody say it doesn’t matter, it does matter,” President Obama added. “And at some point, it will make a difference to them.”
Trump had help lying to the American people about the Coronavirus at its outset in early 2020 when then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) claimed that the Obama administration didn’t leave any pandemic playbook, according to the HuffPost.
Soon after that, Ronald Klain, who served as the White House Ebola response coordinator from October 2014 to February 2015, posted the playbook on social media, while Nicole Lurie, an Obama administration official, confirmed its existence. “To say there was no playbook was ridiculous,” Lurie told PBS in 2020.
Trump also gave American COVID-19 test machines to Vladimir Putin even as hundreds were dying in the US every day.