Obama Says Trump’s COVID-19 Response Has Been An "Absolute Chaotic Disaster"

The former president was reportedly in “quite the mood” during a call with campaign alumni, and didn’t hold back when describing the current administration.

File photo: Barack Obama speaks onstage at an Obama Foundation event in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on Dec. 13, 2019. (Photo by Zahim Mohd/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
File photo: Barack Obama speaks onstage at an Obama Foundation event in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on Dec. 13, 2019. (Photo by Zahim Mohd/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

In a call with Obama campaign and administration alumni, the former president said the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus outbreak has been "an absolute chaotic disaster."

Yahoo News obtained audio of a call former President Barack Obama had with former staffers on Friday, in which he made some of his strongest condemnations yet of President Donald Trump.

Obama was speaking about how involved he will be in the 2020 presidential election, including campaigning for his former vice president, presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

"This election that’s coming up on every level is so important because what we’re going to be battling is not just a particular individual or a political party. 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. 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," Obama said on the call, adding: "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."

Obama also took the opportunity to share his thoughts on the Justice Department’s widely scrutinized recent decision to drop the criminal case against Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI during the Mueller investigation. Flynn confessed in December 2017 to lying about his conversations with then-Russian ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak. Trump has been trying to get the charges dropped against Flynn, whom he considers a friend, for some time; in May 2017,Trump fired FBI Director James Comey in order to try to hinder Mueller’s Russia investigation. Three years later, Attorney General Bill Barr dropped the charges. This is not the first time Barr has been accused of doing favors for Trump at the Justice Department. Flynn served just 24 days in the Trump administration before resigning in disgrace, the shortest tenure ever for a national security adviser.

Obama said the news about Flynn had "been somewhat downplayed."

"And the fact that there is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free. That’s the kind of stuff where you begin to get worried that basic — not just institutional norms — but our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk. And when you start moving in those directions, it can accelerate pretty quickly as we’ve seen in other places," Obama said, according to Yahoo News.

Trump has spent the past week repeating his unfounded theory that Obama was somehow behind the Russia investigation in order to try to discredit the reality tv show star’s presidency. Trump has dubbed the idea "OBAMAGATE," and spent Mother’s Day, two days after audio of the call with Obama was shared, in one of his most prolific tweet-storms yet, which continued into Monday.

Vox’s Aaron Rupar noted that "the 126 tweets or retweets Trump posted [Sunday] ending up being one of his most prolific posting days in history, falling just 16 short of the single-day posting record he set during his impeachment trial in January."

Despite what Trump says about the supposed "Obamagate," Obama warned Trump not to hire Flynn when they met at the White House in November 2016, after Trump won the electoral college. Obama had fired Flynn from his position as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014 largely for "mismanagement and temperamental issues," and had concerns about some of his foreign connections.

Speaking of the months ahead in 2020, Obama told his former staffers on the call: "I am hoping that all of you feel the same sense of urgency that I do. Whenever I campaign, I’ve always said, ‘Ah, this is the most important election.’ Especially obviously when I was on the ballot, that always feels like it's the most important election. This one — I’m not on the ballot — but I am pretty darn invested. We got to make this happen."


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