Letter: Trump takes no responsibility

To the Editor:

Every day now, Donald Trump lies in so many ways at his Coronavirus press briefings. To me, the most galling lie is that no one could have seen this coming. In January of 2017, the outgoing Obama administration held exercises with the Trump team, sharing their lessons learned on the Ebola outbreak. They also left instructions for dealing with a pandemic as a guideline the new administration.

U.S. intelligence agencies were reporting the possibility of a global pandemic in January of 2020. An internal CDC email on February 13th marked 'Urgent', indicated that the agency was struggling with efforts to deal with the coming pandemic. All this was happening while Trump was downplaying the severity of the problem, and claiming that the virus has been contained. It was only after the markets crashed, that the president decided to take this seriously. Not because lives are in danger, but because his re-election is in danger.

The one thing he's said in these briefings that is undeniably true, 'No, I don't take responsibility at all.' That's our president.

Richard Keslinke

Algonquin