President Truman, Dec. 19, 1952: “The buck stops here.”
President Trump, March 13, 2020: “I don’t take responsibility at all.”
Jan. 13, 2017: President Obama’s administration officials presented to Trump’s top aides, as part of a legally required transition, the specific challenges of pandemic scenarios, such as shortages of ventilators and other medical essentials, and that having a coordinated, unified national response was paramount.
President Trump, March 19, 2020: “Nobody knew there’d be a pandemic or an epidemic of this proportion.”
The National Security Council Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense was established after the Ebola epidemic of 2014.
In May 2018, the Trump administration disbanded it.
President Trump, March 13, 2020: “Disbanding. No. I don’t know anything about it.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, March 11, 2020: “I would say we worked very well with that office. It would be nice if the office was still there.”
