Obama lashes out at Trump administration’s response to coronavirus crisis

TIL Desk/World/Washington/ For the second time in a week, former US president Barack Obama has made a veiled attack on his successor Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus crisis, saying the pandemic that had shown that many officials “aren’t even pretending to be in charge.”

Obama criticised the handling of the coronavirus pandemic without mentioning President Trump, a Republican, by name, just a week after privately criticising the administration’s response to the COVID-19. The total death toll in the US due to the coronavirus now stands at over 88,000, which is the highest anywhere in the world. The country has over 1.46 million cases of confirmed COVID-19 infections.

In his speech to graduates from several dozen historically black colleges and universities, Obama said the COVID-19 outbreak had exposed failings in the country’s leadership. “This pandemic has fully, finally torn back the curtain on the idea that so many of the folks in charge know what they’re doing. A lot of them aren’t even pretending to be in charge,” Obama, a Democrat, said during a virtual commencement address for historically black colleges and universities.