- Barack
Obama criticized PresidentDonald Trump 's response to the coronavirus pandemic, calling it "an absolute chaotic disaster," according to an audio recording obtained by Yahoo News. - The former president made his remarks in a private conference call with 3,000 former members of his administration while encouraging them to work for Joe Biden.
- Obama also strongly criticized the decision by the Justice Department to drop criminal charges against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
- The White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said during a press conference on Saturday that Trump's response "has been unprecedented" and "saved American lives."
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Former President Barack Obama criticized President Donald Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic, describing it as "an absolute chaotic disaster" during a private conference call with former members of his administration.
The comments were made during a phone call with 3,000 members of the Obama Alumni Association on Friday, May 7, in which the former president encouraged his ex-staff members to work for Joe Biden, who is trying to unseat Trump in the upcoming election.
His remarks were first reported by Yahoo News, which obtained an audio recording of the call. They have been confirmed to CNN by three former Obama administration officials who were on the call.
"What we're fighting against is these long-term trends in which being selfish, being tribal, being divided, and seeing others as an enemy — that has become a stronger impulse in American life. And by the way, we're seeing that internationally as well. It's part of the reason why the response to this global crisis has been so anemic and spotty," Obama said, according to CNN.
"It would have been bad even with the best of governments. It has been an absolute chaotic disaster when that mindset — of 'what's in it for me' and 'to heck with everybody else' — when that mindset is operationalized in our government," he added.
Obama, who formally endorses Biden last month, also said: "That's why, I, by the way, am going to be spending as much time as necessary and campaigning as hard as I can for Joe Biden."
In the call, Obama also strongly criticized the decision by the Justice Department to drop criminal charges against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty in 2017 as part of the special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. The sudden reversal, which was announced on the same day as Obama's call, was praised by Trump and Flynn allies.
According to CNN, Obama said in the call that dropping the criminal case against Flynn suggested "the rule of law was at risk" in the country.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said during a press conference on Saturday that Trump's response "has been unprecedented" and "saved American lives." She did not mention Obama directly in her response.
At the time of writing, more than 77,000 people have died from the coronavirus in the US. It has more than 1.3 million confirmed cases, according to Worldometer.
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