President Donald Trump is trying to convince observers that he’s actually well-equipped to handle a response to the Coronavirus, which continues to slowly but surely spread across the globe — but his reassurance efforts aren’t exactly working. Down in reality, the Trump administration has bungled the virus response so gravely that they don’t even have someone whose job description focuses on responding to potential pandemics. Last May, they completely eliminated the National Security Council position of senior director for global health security and biothreats. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) harshly criticized the administration for that and other lapses.
He commented:
‘The Trump Administration has slashed CDC funding and left positions charged with managing pandemics vacant. The budget request for Coronavirus funding shows they still don’t understand the magnitude of the threat. The House will pass a real plan.’
The Trump Administration has slashed CDC funding and left positions charged with managing pandemics vacant.
The budget request for Coronavirus funding shows they still don’t understand the magnitude of the threat.
The House will pass a real plan. https://t.co/MCKnGKu6Ee
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) February 26, 2020
The Trump administration has requested $2.5 billion in emergency funding to deal with the virus, only part of which even consists of new money. They’re planning to take around half of that amount from existing programs at the Department of Health and Human Services. Even some Republicans, like House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) and Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (Ala.) have criticized the funding request as seemingly inadequate for actually dealing with the virus’s threat.
Trump has appeared completely out of touch with the basic realities of the situation throughout the rollout of the administration’s virus response. At his Wednesday press conference about the situation, he even expressed repeated apparent surprise at the dangers posed by the common flu. You’d hope a president would be aware of that, or at least competent enough to stay on topic.
Check out Twitter’s response to Schiff…
