Obama Says Trump 'Ignored' Pandemic Playbook He Gave To Him

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Huff Post

Oct 20, 2024, 11:53 AM EDT


Former President Barack Obama said he gave ex-President Donald Trump a pandemic playbook when Trump took office — but he disregarded it.

“He ignored it,” Obama said during a rally for Vice President Kamala Harris in Las Vegas on Saturday. “And three years later, a pandemic hits.”

He said the COVID-19 pandemic was a “generational pandemic” and that any president would have had a hard time before noting how the United States’ death rate compared to countries like Canada that responded proactively to the global outbreak.

“But if you look at a country like Canada, their per capita death rate was 40% lower than it was here in the United States. So just do the math. That’s more than 400,000 people,” Obama said. “People’s grandmothers, people’s fathers, people’s moms who would have been alive if Donald Trump had just paid attention and tried to follow the plan that we gave him.”

Read more: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/obama-trump-pandemic-playbook_n_67150febe4b0ae82147fd9ed

[FirstLight]

1. This....

But if you look at a country like Canada, their per capita death rate was 40% lower than it was here in the United States. So just do the math. That’s more than 400,000 people,” Obama said. “People’s grandmothers, people’s fathers, people’s moms who would have been alive if Donald Trump had just paid attention and tried to follow the plan that we gave him.”


I burst into tears when he started talking about this. Because my father died because of complications from covid and it was last year in 2023 but it could have been eradicated sooner if somebody had actually done something sooner....

And thinking about all the families and the hearts that have been broken because of that just makes me so God damn angry I want to shout this from the rooftops

I want those statistics to go viral!!!! 😭😡

[riversedge]

4. Yes, so many deaths. My mom died also

from complications of covid. She had been healthy-enjoying her family and grandkids, pushing around her walker but happy and except for some joint problems was mobile and enjoyed life.
I have not forgotten--neither has my large family

[FightFight]

13. i am so sorry for your loss

So very sorry

[slightlv]

16. My family got lucky....

several of them came down with Covid (even the covid deniers), and my Mom has had it 5 times and been asymptomatic each time. She's 89. But I lost two very close friends to Covid. And that hurts, too.

[TomCADem]

23. Trump disbanded NSC pandemic unit that experts had praised (2020)

The sad thing is that all Trump needs to do is say some BS that will get picked up by social media, so that there is no discussion about how Trump's action served to slow the US response to the pandemic resulting in hundreds of thousands of people dying who could have been saved.

https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-ap-top-news-virus-outbreak-barack-obama-public-health-ce014d94b64e98b7203b873e56f80e9a

WASHINGTON (AP) — Public health and national security experts shake their heads when President Donald Trump says the coronavirus “came out of nowhere” and “blindsided the world.”

They’ve been warning about the next pandemic for years and criticized the Trump administration’s decision in 2018 to dismantle a National Security Council directorate at the White House charged with preparing for when, not if, another pandemic would hit the nation.

“It would be nice if the office was still there,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institute of Health, told Congress this week. “I wouldn’t necessarily characterize it as a mistake (to eliminate the unit). I would say we worked very well with that office.”

The NSC directorate for global health and security and bio-defense survived the transition from President Barack Obama to Trump in 2017.

[Blue Owl]

2. This should be a goddamned HUGE news story

Because of Dump’s ego and incompetence, 100,000’s of Americans died. Something Obama and the democrats worked hard to prevent.

God damn the GOP to hell and their stupid supporters who blindly endorse this bullshit.

[TomCADem]

24. Trump Replaced White House Pandemic-Response Team With Jared Kushner (2020)

It was a big story...back in 2020. Of course, like all things Trump, he denied and suppressed efforts to examine his administration's responses and now Republicans just make up new lies to draw out attention from the lives lost due to Trump's criminal incompetence.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/trump-fired-pandemic-response-jared-kushner-coronavirus.html

At his coronavirus press briefing yesterday, Fox News correspondent John Roberts asked President Trump about his 2018 decision to eliminate the National Security Council’s pandemic-response office. Trump lashed out, “You know that’s a false story, what you just said is a false story … You shouldn’t be repeating a story you know is false,” accusing Roberts of “working for CNN.” (The charge of committing legitimate journalism is the most serious Trump could think to hurl at a Fox News employee.)

The story is not false. Trump did eliminate the job of coordinating a national pandemic response. And the strongest evidence of the damage he did is that this job is now being performed by Jared Kushner.

In May 2018, the top White House official who was focused on pandemic response departed the White House. “The top White House official responsible for leading the U.S. response in the event of a deadly pandemic has left the administration, and the global health security team he oversaw has been disbanded,” reported the Washington Post at the time. Trump and his allies — including then-NSC director John Bolton, who undertook the ill-fated move — have since tried to muddy the waters about these moves, emphasizing the fact that they merely reorganized the National Security Council rather than bluntly firing everybody involved in pandemic response.

It is true that they kept some global-health officials onboard. But one purpose of the reorganization was to deemphasize pandemic response in favor of other priorities. Nobody bothered to deny this at the time. “In a world of limited resources, you have to pick and choose,” an administration official explained to the Post in its 2018 story. “We lost a little bit of the leadership, but the expertise remains.” The pandemic-response office was created in order to give the issue high-level attention. Trump’s team downgraded the office because they thought it needed less attention. In a world of limited resources, you have to pick and choose, and they chose issues other than pandemic response.

[oasis]

45. Exactly!

[pandr32]

3. That's a lot of death.

The same as Americans who died in WWII.

[johnnyfins]

5. YES YES YES

Thank you. I can't believe it's taken this long to hang this around TSFs neck. My dead friend is prolly rejoicing.

[wiggs]

6. Not only did he ignore it, he did the opposite of what the playbook suggested, in several cases. This is just one of

many egregious, irresponsible acts the TSF administration pursued across multiple governing areas...now all but forgotten in public discussion.

[Blue Owl]

25. And then he sent U.S. COVID supplies to Vladimir Putin instead of his own constituents

[verargert]

7. The Sick F... destoyed what Obama left to help the US

[BadgerMom]

8. It's reminiscent of reports that the Bush administration

ignored intel about the Al Qaeda threat that the Clinton administration gathered and left them.

The fact that Republican ignorance and arrogance costs American lives makes support of those politicians absolutely infuriating and heartbreaking.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/11/cia-directors-documentary-911-bush-213353

[slightlv]

17. All the while screaming that the Clinton Admin

stole the keys off their keyboards! Go from ridiculous to the sublime... anything to divert your attention from what really matters!

[Trueblue Texan]

18. Ignorance and arrogance is ALWAYS a deadly combination. Nt

[Evolve Dammit]

9. Thousand of lives lost because of his fucking assholeishness. My brother one of them. FU Orange Boy. n/t

[verargert]

19. just need 2 seconds with TSF

[ailsagirl]

28. I'm sorry to hear about your brother

[Evolve Dammit]

40. Thank you. Still not over it. He was in hospice and nobody told me. Couldn't even say goodbye.

[ailsagirl]

41. That is heartbreaking

[Evolve Dammit]

46. Thank you. Not sure how to ever forgive those who chose to remain silent.

[ailsagirl]

10. I remember reading that

Incompetent idiot!! Having him at the helm was terrifying. 🤬🤬🤬

[SamKnause]

11. Yes I knew that.

No I haven't forgotten.

If we had any law in this country that fucker and those who aided, abetted, and enabled him would be in jail for life.

[LilElf70]

12. Trump killed my

healthy 62 year old brother. I will never forget, nor forgive him. And of course, there is no recourse for people like me that luckily survived. By far, the worst president this country has ever seen.

[ailsagirl]

42. Horrifying

[LilElf70]

43. It was by far

the worst day of my life. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't miss his voice. And the fact that Trump threw out Obamas plans for how to address a pandemic just makes it worse. I remember Trump saying it was no big deal and will pass soon. I quickly found out what a deranged extreme narcissist is all about. Even to this day, it's still all about him.

My hope, along with millions, is someday, he will be found guilty for all his crimes and put in jail for life. I'm really hoping to see this early next year, AFTER he loses BIGLY in 14 days. This man should never be a position of power ever again.

[ailsagirl]

44. AMEN!!

[prodigitalson]

14. yeah, well 'book' is where you lost him

[TBF]

15. He didn't need no book - he had his full proof bleach plan! nt

[BradBo]

20. Why are you just saying this now?

[AZJonnie]

31. I don't know if he's publicly said so before but I'm sure various surrogates have ever since 2020

The existence of the plan was definitely known to people who were keeping their ear to the ground politically that year, for example it was much discussed around DU.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/obama-team-left-pandemic-playbook-for-trump-administration-officials-confirm
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/12/politics/fact-check-mcconnell-obama-trump-game-plan/index.html

[samwhidbey1128]

21. As of Oct. 2021 More than 140,000 U.S. children lost a primary or secondary caregiver due to the COVID-19 pandemic

In addition, all of the orphaned children - I cannot even imagine the unknown long term effects of no longer having that parent or grandparent whose love for them was unconditional. The word 'sad' does not even begin to cover how I feel about these vulnerable children.

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/more-140000-us-children-lost-primary-or-secondary-caregiver-due-covid-19-pandemic

Just again noting - these numbers just from 2021.

[SunSeeker]

22. Canada's per capita covid death rate was 40% lower than US, Trump killed 400,000 Americans.

We lost 1,000,000 Americans to covid. That means 400,000 Americans died due to Trump ignoring the pandemic playbook.

[Blue Owl]

26. Time to hit tRump's body with a tremendous light....

The light of justice!

[jaxexpat]

32. That's really the only way to deal with it. Trump's presidency amounts to premeditated mass murder.

I mean, what else would you do with a monster whose arrogance killed half a million Americans? World leaders would have laughed like they did at all his ridiculous antics were it not for the piles of bodies. (It's hard to laugh at huge piles of corpses)

His family constantly looted and shook-down the country. It was their mission. 1450 consecutive days of unchecked larceny. For instance: What the fuck was Kushner supposed to be doing in any capacity of official national response to a global pandemic? or in the middle east? or alone in a room with the Whitehouse silverware?

These cretins believe party loyalty is when you do whatever the guy, who provides the "party" house, tells you to do. That's the root of the infection this criminal engendered.

Off with their heads!

[creeksneakers2]

27. Its a real shame Trump's Covid record hasn't been used against him.

Trump is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths. Even his own Covid coordinator says so. And he knew actions he took would end up with a massive death toll but did them anyway, out of hopes he could keep the truth about what was a going on from the public. Among these was ordering the CDC to stop warning people and forcing the CDC to change the guidelines for who should be tested. Trump wanted fewer tests because tests turned up more cases and Trump didn't want the public to know what was going. They even recommended that people living in the same house with somebody who had Covid not get tested. It got so bad that they even wanted MORE people to get sick under a crackpot herd immunity Idea? Hard to believe? Its true. Here's the proof: https://coronavirus-democrats-oversight.house.gov/news/press-releases/clyburn-trump-atlas-birx-redfield-herd-immunity-report?fbclid=IwY2xjawGCxzNleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHYnUb9wKgHOGP6_ISmkJdSJb-7cZlk4oRrLuESsAXagfwrPcaF-2ibpVYA_aem_v5eQtjXbjglCmOJkhC92ow

I've had more to say about this. Wish this would go viral. The public ought to know the truth:

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/8/21/2264927/-Donald-Trump-remorseless-mass-killing-monster

[LetMyPeopleVote]

30. "400,000 people would've been alive if TFG had just paid attention and tried to follow the plan that we gave him"

Link to tweet

BREAKING: For the first time ever, President Obama reveals that he handed over a detailed playbook on how to deal with pandemics, and Trump ignored it.

"400,000 people would've been alive if Donald Trump had just paid attention and tried to follow the plan that we gave him."

[augyboston]

33. tRump is an inherently lazy man with the attention span of a gnat, so...

tRump is very lazy because he never had to do anything in his entire life. He never had to reach. He also has the attention span of your typical ten year old, so of course he dropped the ball when it came to managing the pandemic.

As a result the United States suffered a terrible number of deaths from COVID. We lost over 1.2 million people, while China with a much larger population lost a little over 122,000 people. Over four times as many people in China, yet the USA lost nearly ten times as many people.

Yet another example of dayglow's monumental incompetence!

[OldDogNewTrix]

34. And this is new...how?

Is there any viable alternative?
By anyone-and I mean any cognizant human, - apparently, joining a mob removes cognition…
But any thinking adult….
Can anyone be at all surprised by this?
That the same warped, racist mind that recently promoted lies about an Ohio community (does someone have to die to stop this?!)…the same clown and con man who created and promoted the whole “birther” conspiracy, and weirdly has made a name for repeatedly failing in fantastic fashion, and then believing his own poor judgement over facts in evidence- how does one go brankrupt running a Casino… in New Jersey, …where they bus in Seniors?! The slots alone … but the “Art of The Deal” con man can!
Why would someone believe anyone who has actually crowed, “I’m a genius” , yet persists in demonstrating he is a moron? He rejected any and all working ideas that came before him….But-especially any from a person who scared the bejeezus out of him? A brilliant non-white, wildly popular opponent…(I miss that era)…even if it meant failing again…(the whole bleach idea?)…

[TBF]

37. No one said it was "new" -

as early voting starts, we shouldn't be surprised to see a wrap up of exactly what Trump did when he was president. It is a good reminder - especially to the republicans in my Facebook feed that would like to re-write history.

[GusBob]

35. It was Bush's plan, I think

According to Harris the author of Premonition W came up with a pandemic playbook

[BumRushDaShow]

36. No

Obama team left pandemic playbook for Trump administration, officials confirm


By — Victoria Knight, Kaiser Health News

May 15, 2020 1:08 PM EDT

(snip)

The playbook lists types of infectious disease threats that could emerge. “Novel coronaviruses” were among pathogens flagged as having potential to cause heightened concern.

Lurie said that there were tabletop exercises, which included planning for a pandemic-like situation, during the transition between the Obama and Trump administrations. (The Trump administration also conducted an exercise — known as “Crimson Contagion” — in 2019.)

Other Obama-era officials offered similar stories in interviews this week with CNN: “They were extensively briefed, to the extent that they paid attention to these things during the transition,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, who directed USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance.

“We absolutely did leave a plan. It was called a playbook,” said Lisa Monaco, former homeland security adviser to President Obama. The goal, she said, was to share the lessons learned during the Ebola and Zika outbreaks.

(snip)

Then-Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany holding the plan up at the press on May 14, 2020 and whining-



(still taken from CSPAN video from May 14, 2020 - https://www.c-span.org/video/?472141-1/president-trump-white-house-departure)

Playbook (PDF) - https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6819268/Pandemic-Playbook.pdf

[GusBob]

38. Look man, I didn't write the book about the COVID

Harris did, and he wrote that W had a plan in place first. Bush had read about the 1917 flu and came up with a plan before BO

Premonition

Great read

[BumRushDaShow]

39. WOMAN. And the "plan" being referenced in the OP

was what was given to 45 during the transition between administrations. I provided a link to a PDF copy of what is being discussed.

With the passage of H.R.3448 - Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002

there was the development of how to deal with "bioterrorism" in the aftermath of the Anthrax mailings (and I have participated in some of those "table-top" exercises within my agency after that came out). That became a foundation for any future plans going forward.

But what the Obama/Biden administration did was to develop a document - notably after the media-driven Ebola hysteria, where Crispy Creme kept a nurse (Kacy Hicox) quarantined "in isolation" in NJ -





where there was an obvious need to address "quarantines" and the earlier epidemics /pandemics like the H1N1 outbreak.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

47. Why Obama slamming Trump on his response to Covid matters

Trump occasionally whines that he doesn’t get “credit” for the “great job” he did responding to Covid. It was smart of Obama to set the record straight.

Link to tweet

Obama’s been talking a lot more about Trump’s Covid record, and I think it’s not just another attack line:

He’s reminding voters at a key moment about one of his successor’s most catastrophic failures, which too many are too quick to forget:

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/obama-slamming-trump-response-covid-matters-rcna176624

This came to mind watching Barack Obama headline a campaign rally in Arizona over the weekend.

Link to tweet

“Listen, when I was president ... I had been talking to scientists for a while,” the former Democratic president said. “And so, in my last year in office, we put together a playbook for how to deal with the eventuality of a pandemic — because scientists had been saying, with globalization and travel, etc., rising populations, that at some point there was going to be a pandemic. And so, I said to my team, I said, ‘We’ve got to have a plan,’ just like you do for hurricanes or tornadoes or natural disasters.

“So, we put together this whole playbook, and we ran, we practiced the playbook. We get all the agencies. This is how we’re going to respond. This is how to make sure that the public health systems in all the states are working. Here’s how we’re going to think about the schools. And when Donald Trump came in, we gave over this playbook to them. But the point is, he ignored it.”

After conceding the scope of the pandemic crisis, Obama added that Trump’s failures led to a death toll that could’ve been lower through more responsible governing.

“If somebody tells you that this doesn’t make a difference — having somebody competent, somebody who cares about you, who listens to ordinary people, who listens to people who are experts in these areas — if you hear somebody say, ‘It doesn’t matter,’ it does matter,” the former Democratic president concluded.....

And did I mention that Trump also ignored the pandemic playbook left by his predecessor? Because Obama was right: The incompetent Republican did that, too.

I’m mindful of the fact that memories can be short in politics, but as Trump occasionally whines that he doesn’t get “credit” for the “great job” he did responding to the pandemic, it’s smart of his Democratic predecessor to remind Americans about what actually happened