During Friday’s “Morning Joe” on MSNBC, co-host Mika Brzezinski asked Ron Klain, who served as former President Barack Obama’s Ebola czar, if he would characterize President Donald Trump’s response and handling of the coronavirus pandemic as “negligence” or “criminal” on his part.
Brzezinski noted Trump “seems to be focused on rage tweeting” and “conspiracy theories” about her husband and “Morning Joe” partner rather than acting as a leader.
“I guess I would ask in terms of helping people understand how safe they are, to understand the reality of the leadership they have, how would you characterize our response so far? Negligence, avoidance, criminal? Just a severe lack of ability to process, how would you characterize the way this White House and this president is responding to this pandemic?” asked Brzezinski.
Klain would not take the stance one way or the other on negligence or criminality on Trump’s part, but did question the president’s “focus” and leadership.
“Well, I think it’s been focused on all the wrong things,” Klain told Brzezinski. “I think that there’s been this obsession with trying to protect the level of the stock market. That’s really what’s driven the president’s reaction to this. It’s why he spent all of January and February denying the existence of the virus or denying it was going to be serious, or saying it’d be under control.”
He added, “We’ve seen a failure of leadership from start to finish here.”
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