He was acquitted on Feb. 5. Late Feb. he was briefed on how severe it was going to be, the next day he held a held a big party with a ton of people at his golf club and spent the weekend hanging out and golfing. For the next three weeks he went around telling everyone that was no big deal, "that it would just go away" and that it was no problem to just go about your daily life. The "we were too buys impeaching a corrupt president" line is going to be the "get out of jail free" card here but it is a load of horseshit. Just like his "we inherited bad testing" from Obama is a horseshit excuse.
Timeline.
January 2017, Dr. Fauci predicts that an outbreak would happen in the next few years:
Fauci: ‘No doubt’ Trump will face surprise infectious disease outbreak
January 2017, The Obama administration briefed the Trump administration on the belief a pandemic would come (this ended up not happening at that point) and what they learned from H1N1 and how to combat such a pandemic. In one ear, out the other.
Before Trump’s inauguration, a warning: ‘The worst influenza pandemic since 1918’
Feb. 2018, The CDC... ya know what, just read it smh
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...t-efforts-to-prevent-global-disease-outbreak/
Feb. 2018, U.S. Intelligence releases its report finding that forms of cornavirus could “have pandemic potential if they were to acquire efficient human-to-human transmissibility.”
https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Newsroom/Testimonies/2018-ATA---Unclassified-SSCI.pdf
May 2018, John Bolton disbands the Pandemic Response Team and fires the NSC's pandemic expert and never replacing him:
Sudden Departure Of White House Global Health Security Head Has Experts Worried
Aug. 2018, Trump is warned that tarrifs on China could lead to a shortage on medical supplies.
Trump's trade policy is hampering the US fight against COVID-19
Jan-Aug 2019, Trump administration ran a simulation about a pandemic breakout and the prognosis was that they were unbelievably unprepared. Nothing was done in response.
Before Virus Outbreak, a Cascade of Warnings Went Unheeded
June 2019, Trump eliminated a CDC position that was intended to monitor possible disease outbreaks in China.
Exclusive: U.S. axed CDC expert job in China months before virus outbreak
Oct. 2019, Trump shut down the "PREDICT" Project whose sole responsibility was tracking dangerous diseases and ways to fight it.
A crucial federal program tracking dangerous diseases is shutting down
Jan.-Feb., 2020 - Trump received multiple intelligence briefings warning that it would become a worldwide pandemic, despite saying the exact opposite in public (and now claiming that he knew nothing about it until it was too late).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...9d8cda-6ad5-11ea-b5f1-a5a804158597_story.html
Jan. 2020, China releases COVID-19 genome to allow other countries to develop tests. South Korea develops one that month. Trump refused to accept the WHO's copy of their test and instead insisted on the U.S. developing its own. The first batch were faulty and now we are where we are.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/28/us/testing-coronavirus-pandemic.html
Jan. 22, 2020: Trump says there is no worry about COVID-19 becoming a pandemic and it was "totally under control."
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/01/22...os-switzerland.html?__twitter_impression=true
Jan. 2020: This mess
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/us/politics/coronavirus-us-whistleblower.html
Jan. 31, 2020: Trump bans Chinese officials from entering the U.S. (after it had already begun to spread) but still allowed U.S. citizens to travel to and from China:
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/mar/22/trump-never-actually-banned-flights-from-china-or-/
Feb. 2020: The Diamond Princess:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/heal...f54cae-5279-11ea-b119-4faabac6674f_story.html
Feb. 5, 2020: Azar requests $2 billion to buy medical supplies. Trump gives him 25% of that. The rest was unnecessary:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...4f9a0a-6f82-11ea-aa80-c2470c6b2034_story.html
Feb. 7, 2020: Just days after giving a quarter of the amount of money that was requested for PPE here, Trump sends 17 tons of medical equipment to China
https://www.state.gov/the-united-states-announces-assistance-to-combat-the-novel-coronavirus/
Feb. 26, 2020: Trump says COVID-19 is "like the flu" and that we would have a vaccine "quickly"
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing...bers-coronavirus-task-force-press-conference/
March 7-8: Trump was so concerned he went golfing:
https://www.palmbeachdailynews.com/...night-then-barbed-tweets-just-before-midnight
Spent all of Feb.-March telling it was no big deal
AFTER he was acquitted
At a White House briefing March 19, President Donald Trump said, "Nobody knew there’d be a pandemic or an epidemic of this proportion." But that's simply not the case.
www.factcheck.org
.