Former President Barack Obama called out President Donald Trump’s disorderly way of handling the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic and especially urging voters to demand better of our government.
What We Know:
- “We’ve seen all too terribly the consequences of those who denied warnings of a pandemic,” Obama tweeted. “We can’t afford any more consequences of climate denial. All of us, especially young people, have to demand better of our government at every level and vote this fall.”
We've seen all too terribly the consequences of those who denied warnings of a pandemic. We can't afford any more consequences of climate denial. All of us, especially young people, have to demand better of our government at every level and vote this fall. https://t.co/K8Ucu7iVDK
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) March 31, 2020
- Obama hasn’t been one to attack other elected officials, especially Trump since leaving office in 2016. He did not mention the current U.S. leader by name in the tweet.
- President Trump and his indecisive administration have been relentlessly criticized for downplaying the threat of the virus for weeks. He has previously called climate change a “hoax” and since then, his administration has pursued an anti-environment agenda.
- Moreover, Trump has seemed to throw blame onto Obama for his own government’s failure to appropriately respond to this public health crisis. The number of infected people is reaching a staggering 200,000 people in the U.S. and has killed close to 4,000 now. The U.S. remains as the country with the higher number of COVID-19 cases as of late.
Up until now, the 44th president has actively avoided criticizing Trump as he believes in the tradition of ex-presidents “gracefully exiting the political stage”. Obama did, however, bring up his successor in a speech in September 2018 when he essentially called for younger voters to restore sanity back into our politics.
