“He chose to ignore it,” Obama stated during a rally in Las Vegas on Saturday, while addressing Vice President Kamala Harris. “And now, three years later, we are facing a pandemic.”
According to him, the COVID-19 pandemic is a significant event that will have long-lasting effects. He acknowledged the challenges that any president would face in dealing with such a crisis.
Additionally, he pointed out the difference in death rates between the United States and countries like Canada, which took proactive measures to combat the global outbreak.
In early 2020, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) made the claim that the Obama administration had not left behind any pandemic playbook.
However, this claim was soon debunked when Ronald Klain, the White House Ebola response coordinator from October 2014 to February 2015, shared the playbook on social media. Nicole Lurie, an Obama administration official, also confirmed the existence of the playbook.
Lurie expressed his disbelief at the notion that there was no playbook during an interview with PBS in 2020.
