At the time of this writing, Donald Trump has been president for 3 years, 190 days, 1 hour 55 minutes and 30 seconds. It’s important to remember that timeline when discussing remarks made by Trump attorney general in a congressional hearing in which he was asked about Donald Trump’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a response clearly endorsed by Trump himself, William Barr actually said that the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically around the slow start and chaotic implementation of testing for the virus, is President Obama’s fault. Apparently, he mishandled the CDC and Trump hasn’t had enough time to fix it by now.
In truth, President Obama’s administration left a 69-page playbook for the Trump administration on how to deal with a pandemic. That playbook was ignored. Obama also created a task force to deal with epidemics and pandemics in the United States. Trump dismantled that task force. Both of those things were done years ago, and Trump has every right not to use them if he disagrees with them, but he hasn’t replaced them with anything in 3 years, 190 days, 1 hour 55 minutes and 30 seconds of his presidency.
But it’s Obama’s fault that 150,000 Americans are dead under the presidency of Donald Trump?
Of course, it couldn’t have been the entire month after being briefed on the pandemic that Trump did nothing to blame. It can’t have been Trump’s downplaying of the virus, calling warnings a “hoax,” or attacking preeminent virologist Dr. Anthony Fauci instead of actually doing his job. None of those are to blame. It’s Obama, because of course it is.
Twitter had a big response to news of Barr’s deflected blame. Read some of their comments below:
Featured image screenshot via YouTube
