by Melvin A. Goodman 
Donald Trump’s frequent attacks on our governance include maligning the legacy of his predecessor, President Barack Obama break precedence. In an obvious effort to defend his handling of the current pandemic, Trump has distorted the role of President Obama and Vice President Biden in responding to the H1N1 Swine Flu pandemic in 2009, which he termed a “big failure” and a “disaster.”
As late as April 17, when there were more than 700,000 COVID-19 cases and nearly 40,000 deaths in the United States, Trump tried to change the subject by tweeting that “Biden/Obama were a disaster in handling the H1N1 Swine Flu,” citing 17,000 deaths because of their “incompetence. Actually, there were about 12,000 deaths from the swine flu in 2009-2010, and the Obama administration declared a public health emergency when there were only 20 cases of H1N1 and no deaths, two months before the World Health Organization declared the pandemic.
False Accusations
- Unlike Trump, who dominates the discussion of the COVID-19 pandemic, Obama rarely discussed the swine flu, leaving it to the experts at Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to provide regular briefings.
- Trump charged that the Obama administration received “disastrous polling numbers” for its handling of the crisis. In fact, Obama had far better polling numbers than Trump could ever claim for his role in the current pandemic.
- As a result, Glenn Kessler, the fact checker of the Washington Post, awarded Four Pinocchio’s to Trump for castigation of Obama and Biden.
Not Asking Past Presidents’ Advice
Trump’s constant attack on a previous president contributes to the political polarization in the country in a time that calls for unity. It is particularly bizarre because presidents typically call on their predecessors at times of crisis for political and personal support. President George W. Bush, for example, formed a dramatic alliance between his father, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton to signal unity in the wake of the 9/11 attacks in 2001. For example, Obama made regular calls to his predecessors for advice and guidance in dealing with various domestic and international issues.
Although there seemed to be no love lost between Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy, the young president called his immediate predecessor for advice prior to the Bay of Pigs debacle and during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Bipartisan unity is an essential tool for rallying the country in any crisis, but Trump is preoccupied with placing blame and responsibility where it doesn’t belong, on one of his predecessors.
Ignoring the Intel
Trump’s failure to take responsibility looks even worse in the wake of Greg Miller’s important April 27th article in the Washington Post last week that revealed the CIA and the Intelligence Community delivered more than a dozen classified briefings to the White House in January and February, when Trump was declaring that the virus would go away by April. “It’s like a miracle,” he said, “it will disappear.” CIA warnings appeared in the President’s Daily Brief, the most sensitive publication within the Intelligence Community. In addition to the president, it is received by the National Security Adviser and the Secretaries of State, Defense, and Treasury. Thus, the entire national security bureaucracy is responsible for this terrible cover-up of essential intelligence.
The Threat
ABC’s White House correspondent, Jonathan Karl, believes that Trump’s erosion of truth will threaten trust in future election results and the ability to hold elected officials accountable. Karl’s recent book, “Front Row at the Trump Show,” concludes that “The question is whether America will ever be the same again, whether we have become a nation of people who define truth in relative terms, accepting as true only what we want to believe.” Karl’s epilogue is truly frightening.
The opinions expressed by Mel are wholly his own and do not imply in any way Florida Veterans For Common Sense, Inc. endorsement or agreement.