On Apr. 17, President Donald Trump counterattacked his predecessor, calling him grossly incompetent. Trump was referring to Barack Obama's recently concluded addresses wherein he accused leaders of not even pretending to be in charge amid this unprecedented crisis. Before responding to Obama's remark, Trump noted that the administration officials spent their weekend by taking a working trip to Camp David.
He was addressing a pool of reporters at the White House. Trump said they had a slew of terrific meeting, and revealed that noteworthy progress is being made on several fronts such as developing a cure for COVID-19, which has given Americans a bad time. When reporters insisted on knowing what he thought about Obama's comment, Trump said the former president was incompetent, pressing further that he was "grossly incompetent."
After leaving office, Obama has remained tight-lipped about politics or how the new POTUS is doing. The former president broke from the tradition and has opened up about what he thinks went wrong in terms of handling the pandemic. The unemployment rate shot up to 14.7 percent last month with 20.5 million Americans losing their jobs.
While the states have slowly started lifting coronavirus restrictions in certain areas, the pathogen is still at large with about 1.5 million cases and claiming over 89,000 lives in the United States. The Trump administration is facing strong criticism for its delayed coronavirus response and the dearth of planning in terms of providing medical supplies and tests, POLITICO reported.
During a call with about 3,000 former staffers last week, Obama the administration has adopted a What’s in it for me? mindset. Aside from that, he deemed the White House pandemic response as an absolutely chaotic disaster. While virtually addressing graduates of historically black universities and colleges, the former president brought the topic again.
Obama noted that the pandemic has unmasked people in charge who were widely believed to know what they are doing. Without naming names, Obama targeted Trump and his officials in his addresses.
This is not the first time Trump has called his predecessor, Barack Obama incompetent. He has complained about the earlier administration leaving behind an ineffective and broken system for the Trump administration. Moreover, he said he doesn't plan to ask former presidents for help because he is unlikely to learn much.
In 2013, even before revealing his presidential aspirations, Trump posted a message that described Obama as totally incompetent. He now blames the previous administration for undermining him and his top associates.