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The former President of the United States, Barack Obama, launched a scathing attack on Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, calling it an “absolute chaotic disaster.”
In a leaked web call Friday night with former members of his administration, Obama also said the Justice Department decision to drop the charges against Michael Flynn, the former Trump national security adviser who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI in Russia investigation jeopardizes the rule of law in the United States.
In the audio, first obtained by Yahoo News, Obama urges former employees to join him at a rally behind Joe Biden as he prepares to face Trump in the November presidential election.
The United States, by far, leads the world in the number of coronavirus infections, with almost 1.3 million, and deaths, with more than 77,000.
Trump has been criticized for essentially abdicating any leadership role in guiding the country through one of its worst crises in a century, leaving states alone to deal with the pandemic and even bid on each other to obtain critical medical teams in the open or foreign market.
Critics say Trump, after minimizing the threat posed by the virus, wasted precious time in February when the pathogen spread in the United States and his administration did little to stock up on test kits and other medical equipment or to develop a strategy. coherent national.
Aiming for re-election, Trump has also been criticized for putting his own political interests before human life by aggressively pressuring states to reopen their devastated economies without a clear plan on how to do so safely.
“Be selfish, be tribal”
“What we are fighting against is against these long-term trends where being selfish, being tribal, being divided, and seeing others as enemies has become a stronger drive in American life,” Obama told his former employees. “It is part of the reason why the response to this global crisis has been so anemic and irregular.”
“It would have been bad even with the best governments. It has been an absolutely chaotic mess when that mindset, of “what’s in it for me” and “bugging everyone else,” when that mindset is operational in our government, “he said.
Obama said the drop of the charges against Flynn was sinister.
“That’s the kind of thing you start to worry about the basics of, not just institutional norms, but our basic understanding of the rule of law,” he said.
Obama endorsed Biden’s candidacy last month and said he would be deeply involved in his campaign against Trump. He told the Obama Alumni Association: “I hope you all have the same sense of urgency as I do.”
