Obama gives biggest sign yet of upcoming onslaught on Trump; lashes out over Covid crisis

Former President Barack Obama harshly criticized President Donald Trump's handling of coronavirus pandemic as an “absolute chaotic disaster” during a conversation with ex-members of his ministration.

Obama also reacted to Justice Department dropping its criminal case against Trump's first national security viser, Michael Flynn, saying he worried that “basic understanding of rule of law is at risk.”

More than 78,400 people with COVID-19 have died in United States and more than 1.3 million people have tested positive, according to latest estimates from Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

Obama's comments came during a Friday call with 3,000 members of Obama Alumni Association, people who served in his ministration. Obama urged his supporters to back his former vice president, Joe Biden, who is trying to unseat Trump in v. 3 election.

“What we're fighting against is se long-term trends in which being selfish, being tribal, being divided, and seeing ors as an enemy — that has become a stronger impulse in American life. And by way, we're seeing that internationally as well. It's part of reason why response to this global crisis has been so anemic and spotty,” Obama said, according to Yahoo News.

“It would have been b even with best of governments. It has been an absolute chaotic disaster when that mindset — of 'what's in it for me' and 'to heck with everybody else' — when that mindset is operationalized in our government," he said.

Trump has consistently defended and boasted of his response to virus, saying that travel restrictions from China and Europe as well as social distancing guidelines have prevented far greater dam. “I think we saved millions of lives,” he said earlier this week.

Trump has criticized Obama ministration in relation to his own ministration's response to outbreak. Yet Trump's contention that his ministration inherited “a broken system and a broken test” from Obama's is false; vel coronavirus did t exist until late last year. In fact, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention struggled to develop its own test in January and n discovered problems in its kits in February.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany did t mention Obama directly in her response to his remarks.

“President Trump's coronavirus response has been unprecedented and saved American lives," she said. “While Democrats were pursuing a sham witch hunt against President Trump, President Trump was shutting down travel from China." She ded: “While Democrats encourd mass garings, President Trump was deploying PPE, ventilators, and testing across country."

Obama has generally kept a low profile on current political events, even when Trump would dispar him or his ministration on Twitter.

But Friday's call indicates that he'll be playing an active role in coming election. He told supporters that he would be “spending as much time as necessary and campaigning as hard as I can for Joe Biden."