Obama left Trump a perfectly good pandemic response team. Trump got rid of it. And here we are.

Trump, however, eliminated the pandemic response team, including the top-level NSC member, just as he has reversed Obama policies throughout the government.

A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that while the NSC position had been eliminated, its duties had been absorbed into other positions on the council. “Similar responsibilities still exist at the National Security Council but under different titles,” the official said, adding that the council “is staffed by officials with extensive experience and expertise including in virology, infectious disease epidemiology, global health security, public health, and emergency response.”

.....elimination of the NSC position reporting directly to the national security adviser makes a rapid response on global health issues more difficult.

He said the Trump administration’s response to the current crisis has seemed fixated on the notion that the virus could be kept from ever making it to this country, rather than coming up with a plan to deal with it once it does.

“The ball has been dropped,” Konyndyk said. “They’ve lost a month where they could have been doing that.”

At Wednesday’s press conference, Trump took questions for some 45 minutes, giving unusually calm advice that Americans should treat the virus like the seasonal flu by washing their hands and staying home if they felt ill. He did, however, at times veer off into campaign mode, claiming he would beat any of his potential Democratic opponents, blaming some of the recent 2,000-point stock market decline on Tuesday’s Democratic debate, and insulting Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).


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