A video has emerged of Donald Trump talking about cutting the US pandemic response team in 2018 – days after claiming that he knew nothing about the disbanded White House unit.
Mr Trump said of the pandemic team that “some of the people we’ve cut they haven’t been used for many, many years and if we ever need them we can get them very quickly and rather then spending the money”.
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“I’m a business person, I don’t like having thousands of people around when you don’t need them,” he added.
The US president has come under fire in recent days for his decision to disband the National Security Council directorate at the White House responsible for planning the US’s preparedness for future pandemics.
The unit had been established by the previous White House administration in 2014 after the outbreak of Ebola.
A former director of the unit, Dr Beth Cameron, used an op-ed in The Washington Post to say that “it is clear that eliminating the office has contributed to the federal government’s sluggish domestic response".
In a press conference on Friday, Mr Trump denied knowing anything about the cuts in 2018 when questioned by Yamiche Alcindor, a reporter for PBS.
After denying that his administration was responsible for any failures in the roll-out of American coronavirus testing, Alcindor had asked Mr Trump: “You said that you don’t take responsibility, but you did disband the White House pandemic office, and the officials that were working in that office left this administration abruptly. So what responsibility do you take to that?”
The US president responded by saying: “Well, I just think it’s a nasty question ...You say we did that, I don’t know anything about it.”
tphillips1990 on March 17th, 2020 at 01:57 UTC »
I can't stand the current situation in this country.
Trump can make egregious lies on a national scale. Many people eat it up and consider the matter closed for good. Then other people provide undeniable evidence - typically quotes directly from Trump's mouth - to rebuke Trump almost immediately after. Then people refuse to care because they stopped paying attention as soon as Trump told them what to think, or in some cases because acknowledging reality would prove to be too problematic for them.Tundrok221 on March 17th, 2020 at 00:21 UTC »
That fucker LITERALLY confirmed in a February interview that he was not only aware of it, he felt it was fine because they would be easy to rehire
Hairydone on March 16th, 2020 at 23:59 UTC »
“I’m a business person, I don’t like having thousands of people around when you don’t need them.”
This explains a lot.