“A chaotic and absolute disaster” is Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus health crisis, according to former US President Barack Obama.
This is how he defined the action of the current United States government in a private phone call whose audio was published by Yahoo News and confirmed to CNN and other media by sources close to the former Democratic president.
Obama’s sour words were part of a 30-minute interview with former members of his personal team to encourage them to continue supporting his former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign for the White House.
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And in it, he underlined how the United States’ response to the pandemic demonstrates the need for strong leadership in times of global crisis, in the midst of the campaign for the presidential elections in November, in which Trump seeks re-election.
Former vice president and Democratic candidate Joe Biden, wearing a mask, during a message in the media. / BLOOMBERG
“The upcoming elections, at all levels, are very important because what we are fighting against is not just an individual or a political party. We are fighting to counter this long-term trend of being selfish, tribal, divided and seeing others “said Obama, who rarely publicly exposes his views on the current president.
And he stressed, without naming Trump, that that mode is an “enemy, which has become a stronger drive in American life.”
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Obama’s harshest words, however, were the ones he used to refer to managing the coronavirus crisis.
“The response to this global crisis has been anemic,” he said. “It has been a chaotic and absolute disaster, when that attitude of ‘what’s in it for me’ and of ‘bugging everyone else’, when that mentality prevails in the government.”
For that reason, he added, “it is that I will dedicate all the necessary time and make every effort to collaborate in the Joe Biden campaign.”
After endorsing his former vice president’s candidacy last month, Obama said he would personally get involved in the campaign to help him.
In this context, the former president told the group of young people with whom he spoke on Friday: “I hope you all feel the same sense of urgency as I do.”
Still very popular with Democrats, Obama previously hinted that the Republican billionaire had “dismissed warnings” about the risks of a pandemic.
Trump’s detractors accuse the president of having minimized the threat first and after giving contradictory and confusing instructions, among calls for caution and the rush to revive the economy.
In Friday’s conversation, the first black president of the United States (2009-2017) also referred to the controversial Justice Department decision to close the case against Michael Flynn, a former Trump aide prosecuted for lying about his contacts with a Russian diplomat.
“There is no precedent that can be found for a person accused of perjury who gets away with it,” Obama said.
“That’s the kind of thing you start worrying about that the basic understanding, not just institutional norms, but our basic understanding of the rule of law is at risk.”
“When you take that path, this can go very quickly, as we have seen elsewhere,” he added, and asked not to underestimate this event.
There too, he stresses, there is a reason to support his former vice president.
Source: ANSA and AFP
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