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Arrogance? Hubris? Ignorance? (Definitely). Why the hell would you shut down a unit that was created to stop the spread of a pandemic? Too much money? How much money has our country lost just yesterday alone? What a coincidence that Trump’s incompetence is highlighted by a virus. Talk about karma.
Trump struggles to explain why he disbanded his global health team
According to Trump, "you can never really think is going to happen," but the NSC's team existed precisely because officials recognized the possible threat.
March 9, 2020, 10:20 AM CDT
One of Donald Trump's most important missteps in dealing with the coronavirus outbreak happened before anyone had even heard of COVID-19. In fact, the president's first error came back in 2018.
It was two years ago when Trump ordered the shutdown of the White House National Security Council's entire global health security unit. NBC News had a good report on this recently, noting that the president's decision "to downsize the White House national security staff -- and eliminate jobs addressing global pandemics -- is likely to hamper the U.S. government's response to the coronavirus."
It was against this backdrop that a reporter asked Trump late last week about whether he was prepared to "rethink having an Office of Pandemic Preparation in the White House." The president replied:
Did Trump Fire the US Pandemic Response Team? (TRUE)
series of cost-cutting decisions made by the Trump administration in preceding years that had gutted the nation’s infectious disease defense infrastructure. The “pandemic response team” firing claim referred to newsaccounts from Spring 2018 reporting that White House officials tasked with directing a national response to a pandemic had been ousted.
....
Ziemer abruptly departed from his post leading the global health security team on the National Security Council in May 2018 amid a reorganization of the council by then-National Security Advisor John Bolton, and Ziemer’s team was disbanded. Tom Bossert, whom the Washington Post reported “had called for a comprehensive biodefense strategy against pandemics and biological attacks,” had been fired one month prior.
It’s thus true that the Trump administration axed the executive branch team responsible for coordinating a response to a pandemic and did not replace it
Fired” may be a little strong, but in 2018, top national security officials handling pandemics left abruptly and were not replaced by the Trump administration.
As for funding, there’s no question that the Trump administration sought to cut key CDC budget categories. But thanks to Congress, that funding was restored and even increased in bills that Trump ultimately signed.
US government is just suffering the kind of brain drain that occurs at many companies when a new boss comes in, doesn't understand why anything works the way it does, makes a bunch of idiotic one size fits all changes and proclamations to "save money", and the talented people who actually do the work and know what they are talking about leave for better opportunities. Few months/years down the line the company collapses because of short sighted decisions made by upper management who had no clue what was ACTUALLY needed to properly fill their niche.
You can't proclaim for years you know more than all the experts, that you are the smartest and only you can fix it, and expect actually talented people who know what they are talking about to stand around and take it while you s**t on them for a photo op.
This is the biggest problem in general with Trumpism is that it assumes all experts are worthless liars and only Trump can fix any problem. Which is generally the opposite of the situation. The experts are the people who have been keeping things running smoothly for so long, only a first order fool like Trump could come in and f**k it up.
The scientists are lying, Trump knows better
The generals are lying, Trump knows better
The doctors are lying, Trump knows better
The economists are lying, Trump knows better
No.
Trump is lying and he knows nothing. The experts are the ones you SHOULD listen to if you have a brain in your head, they are the ones who spent their lives specializing in specific focused areas of studies obtaining actual subject matter mastery. They put in the leg work to obtain the knowledge that Trump and much of Trumps base are incapable and frankly jealous of.
Trump's ignorant base epitomizes the Issac Asimov quote:
“the strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’”
A wise man listens to people more experienced than they are
An idiot thinks they always know best
Last edited by zzzSnorlax; 03-10-2020 at 01:42 PM..
How about EVERYONE quit whining about sources and look at the facts:
1. Was the team intact when Trump took office?
2. Is it intact now?
[excrement] flows downhill, blame whoever you want. If your answers are Yes/No, then it falls on this admins watch, unless you can find a way to blame Hillary, or distract everyone about her emails....
FACT: It really does not matter who's version is right, it's all biased. Either Trump shut it down, he allowed it to get shut down, someone outside his Admin shut it down, or it's not been shut down.
1 - 3 have the same outcome, and 4 didn't happen.
He should not have shut it down, or let it get shut down. I expect better leadership from a sitting POTUS, no matter what color tie he wears at his convention...
He shut it down because President Obama created it. That's the long and short of it. Because all that matters to him is to undo as much as possible that the Obama administration did because Obama made a fool of him on national television. His thought processes are not capable of moving beyond that massive ego.
He shut it down because President Obama created it. That's the long and short of it. Because all that matters to him is to undo as much as possible that the Obama administration did because Obama made a fool of him on national television. His thought processes are not capable of moving beyond that massive ego.
How did we ever survive without this "team" prior to the Obama administration?
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