March 4, 2020

*Please note the above video is two short clips spliced together.*

Talking to reporters today Trump invented a way to blame President Barack Obama for the inadequate supplies and facilities needed to test for COVID-19, the coronavirus outbreak that has already claimed 11 lives in the United States.

TRUMP: I just wanna add, if I could go a little bit further, the Obama Administration made a decision on testing that turned out to be very detrimental to what we're doing. We undid that decision a few days ago, so that the testing can take place in a much more accurate and rapid fashion. That was a decision we disagreed with. I don't think we would have made it, for some reason it was made, but we've undone that decision.

To quote the great VOX reporter, Aaron Rupar, what's he talking about?

Or, to go a little bit further, what in the name of orange fascist Putin a$$-licking tang is he talking about?

A brave reporter in the room straightened his spine to asked that very thing, though not as eloquently as I did.

REPORTER: Mr. President, you had mentioned an Obama-era rule that you had changed regarding THIS virus? I didn't follow that.

TRUMP: Well, let's talk about it, go ahead.

PENCE: Well, Bob Redfield, you might speak about the...the last administration asserted FDA jurisdiction over testing, and the development of tests like this, and Bob and the president changed that on Saturday, so that now, as I spoke to several governors this morning, states now actually have the ability to actually conduct coronavirus tests in state labs, university laboratories...

TRUMP: Big difference.

PENCE: Um, and that's because of the change the president authorized.

So, does that mean that there aren't uniform standards for testing for coronavirus? Does it mean that there aren't even uniform standards for developing testing KITS for coronavirus? I don't mean to be nitpicky about my pandemics, but it just seems we'd want a government agency who had experts trained in supervising this sort of thing as the central home base of operations.

But why do that when he can blame Obama for something that probably helped Americans be healthy?

And why do that when he was the one who hollowed out the government's ability to respond to such crises in the first place?

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