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Republican Governor Larry Hogan of Maryland claimed that Donald Trump looked down on the people of South Korea in front of his wife, who is South Korean.
Hogan made the claims in a Washington Post Editorial devastating Trump’s leadership during the coronavirus pandemic.
According to Mr. Hogan, the comments were made during a private dinner hosted by the Association of Republican Governors. The governor remembers Trump talking about how much he respected Chinese President Ji Xinping, how much he enjoyed playing golf with Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and how well he had gotten along with Kim Jong-Un, the dictator of North Korea. .
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“So the jarring part: Trump said he really didn’t like dealing with South Korea’s President Moon. The South Koreans were ‘terrible people,'” he said, and he didn’t know why the United States had been protecting them all. these years, “Mr. Hogan wrote.” ‘We don’t get paid, Trump complained.’ “
Hogan recalled seeing his wife’s reaction to the President insulting her home country.
“Yumi was sitting there while the President was hurling insults at her birthplace. I realized she was hurt and upset. I know she wanted to go. But she sat there politely and quietly,” she wrote.
The larger editorial recounts the Hogans’ efforts to secure test kits for their state. The couple rushed to find test kits in the days after Trump announced that the federal government would hand over responsibility for coronavirus testing to the state.
Ms. Hogan pleaded with South Korean Ambassador to the US Lee Soo-hyuck for help securing the kits.
“That request launched what we call Operation Enduring Friendship, 22 days of research, testing, and negotiating an unprecedented set of protocols. Our scientists and doctors talked to their scientists and doctors,” Hogan wrote. “Eight Maryland government agencies got involved, as did their Korean counterparts. He took dozens and dozens of phone calls, night after night, sometimes it seemed like all night, working across language barriers and a 13-hour time difference. hours”.
Ultimately, the couple obtained 500,000 tests with the help of the South Korean government. Despite securing the evidence on her own, according to Trump’s instructions to the states, the president did not congratulate Maryland’s first two.
“The Governor of Maryland really did not understand [about testing]”Trump said.” The Maryland Governor could have called Mike Pence, he could have saved a lot of money … I don’t think he had to go to South Korea. I think I needed to get a little bit of knowledge. ”
Although Hogan’s article is ultimately about his and his wife’s relationship with South Korea, it does not strike a blow to directly blame the Trump Administration for leadership failures, especially in the early stages of the pandemic.
“So many actions at the national level could have been taken in those early days, but they were not. While other countries rushed through well-coordinated testing regimes, the Trump administration disputed the effort,” Hogan wrote. “The test used by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from the start was fraught with inaccuracies, and burdensome regulations hampered the nation’s private labs. The resulting disorganization would delay mass testing for nearly two months and leave the nation largely in the dark. epidemic spread. “
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