Yet another report — this time from the Washington Post — has exposed the fact that while U.S. intelligence agencies “were issuing ominous, classified warnings in January and February about the global danger posed by the coronavirus,” President Donald Trump and Republicans in Washington “played down the threat and failed to take action that might have slowed the spread” of the virus. Despite a constant flow of intelligence updates on the dire situation in other countries, “Trump continued publicly and privately to play down the threat the virus posed to Americans.”
According to the Washington Post’s reporting, part of the problem was that the president trusted assurances from China over information from American intelligence agencies.
“Every Senate Republican will have to answer for the Trump administration’s failure to heed repeated ‘ominous, classified’ intelligence warnings about the threat of the coronavirus throughout January and February — as consequences crush our public health system and our economy,” said DSCC spokesperson Lauren Passalacqua. “There’s a reason why the United States was not adequately ready to stop this pandemic threat: Republicans in Washington gutted preparedness efforts to respond to outbreaks like this, then dismissed the alarm bells, downplayed the risks to the public, and now refuse to hold the president accountable.”
Washington Post: U.S. intelligence reports from January and February warned about a likely pandemic
By Shane Harris, Greg Miller, Josh Dawsey and Ellen Nakashima
March 20, 2020
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