Press Briefing by Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany
Issued on: May 15, 2020
She is freaking funny
Now I would like to focus on the Trump administration’s unprecedented coronavirus response.
Some have erroneously suggested that the Trump administration threw out the pandemic response playbook left by the Obama-Biden administration. What the critics fail to note, however, is that this thin packet of paper was replaced by two detailed, robust pandemic response reports commissioned by the Trump administration
So we exchanged this one, which I will hand over to my assistant, Lyndee, for these two pandemic response plans.
In 2018, the Trump administration issued our Pandemic Crisis Action Plan, one of the binders that I just handed to Lyndee. Further, from August 13th to the 16th, the Trump administration conducted the Crimson Contagion 2019 Functional Exercise. This was a pandemic stimulation [simulation] to test the nation’s ability to respond to a large-scale outbreak.
In January of 2020, HHS issued the Crimson Contagion 2019 Functional Exercise After-Action Report. That was one of the additional documents that I just handed over. This exercise expounded upon — exposed, rather, the shortcomings in legacy planning documents, which inform President Trump’s coronavirus response, beginning as early as January. And those legacy planning document shortcomings were, in fact, the papers that I just handed over, that were provided to us by the Obama-Biden administration.
For example, President Trump’s Crimson After-Action Report highlighted that the Obama-era policy directive from November 2016, quote — and I’m quoting from the document — “Does not provide the requisite mechanisms or processes to effectively lead the coordination of the federal government’s response.” Instead, President Trump established the White House Coronavirus Task Force and put Vice President Pence in charge of the interagency response. These were effective decisions, and they undoubtedly enhanced our response to the coronavirus
Furthermore, what Crimson Contagion taught us is that President Trump was right all along about misguided economic and trade policies that left Americans vulnerable to pandemics.
In June 2016 — so, many, many years ago — then-businessman Donald Trump said this: quote, “America became the world’s dominant economy by becoming the world’s dominant producer…I have visited cities and towns across this country where a third or even half of manufacturing jobs have been wiped out in the last 20 years. Today, we import nearly $800 billion more in goods than we export. This is not some natural disaster. It is politician-made disaster.” That was then-candidate Trump, who has now implemented those policies as President Trump.
And this forward-thinking vision contrasted with that of President Obama who said, quote, “Trump just says, ‘Well, I’m going to negotiate a better deal.’ Well, what — how exactly are you going to negotiate that? What magic wand do you have?” That magic wand was ripping up Trans-Pacific Partnership. It was ripping up NAFTA. It was replacing it with the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, a great deal for automakers and our farmers. And it was ending China’s predatory trade policies and negotiating a historic phase one China deal. That is what this President has done.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/press-briefing-press-secretary-kayleigh-mcenany-051520/