Trump has 'gone awol' as president amid coronavirus pandemic, says ex-CIA director

[Mike 03]

The Guardian
David Smith in Washington
Thu 2 Jul 2020 08.14 EDT

Leon Panetta becomes latest prominent public figure to accuse Trump of effectively surrendering to the virus and abandoning Americans to their fate

Donald Trump has “essentially gone awol from the job of leadership that he should be providing a country in trouble” during the coronavirus pandemic, a former defence secretary and CIA director said on Wednesday.

Leon Panetta, who served in various capacities under nine US presidents, became the latest prominent public figure to accuse Trump of effectively surrendering to the virus and abandoning Americans to their fate, using the military jargon awol, meaning absent without leave.

“This is a major crisis,” Panetta told Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN, noting that top infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci has warned that America may hit 100,000 new cases a day, twice the current rate.

“But the president, rather than bringing together some kind of national strategy to confront this crisis, simply resorts to tweeting about vandalism and other things to kind of divert attention from the crisis that’s there.”

Read more here: https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/02/trump-coronavirus-awol-crisis-leon-panetta

[Thomas Hurt]

1. The a hole didn't want to face it from the beginning...

still doesn't want to deal with it, cuz it is messing with his polls.

That idiot was out of his depth from the day he was sworn in.

[brush]

2. He's also reverting back to what he said in Feb. and March...

that it'll just go away.

He repeated yesterday, July 1st, that it'll just go away.

He's incapable of visualizing and then then instructing his staff to work with the states to institute a national testing and tracing strategy. It certainly seems, as the OP says, he's checked out and moved on.

[Kid Berwyn]

3. Ignore & Ignorance

Heinous Anus doesn’t do anything because he can’t do anything. Never having worked a day in his life, he doesn’t know how, let alone what to do. Thanks, Moscow Mitch.

[uponit7771]

4. He's back telling America everything is OK, now

[Captain Zero]

8. LIHOP

letting it wash over the country. I think that's how he said it when he considered it 3 months ago. here we are.

[crickets]

5. The chorus is growing but still not loud enough. The obvious refrain should be: resign.

By his wanton inaction the man is a stone cold murderer. It makes no sense that people step forward to point out his deadly inadequacies and how unlikely they are to change but stop short of the obvious. For the sake of the nation, for the sake of all our very lives, he should be compelled to RESIGN.

[HotTeaBag]

7. Agreed.

But the chorus needs to be more than solely ex-officials - no one listens to them (or most of them anyway).

Current officials and non-Democratic Congress people need to find their spines and speak out - and not as an 'unnamed source' in a NYT story.

[moondust]

6. Job? Job?

What is this "job" of which you speak?

He's just there for the cheering crowds. He was never interested in the "job." (shudder)