Eck. One more turd to plop in the festering stew of Trump’s incompetence, evidencing how careless, unprepared, and unworthy Trump is to be POTUS.

NBC News had a good report on this recently, noting that the president's decision "to downsize the White House national security staff -- and eliminate jobs addressing global pandemics -- is likely to hamper the U.S. government's response to the coronavirus."

The truth is probably “because Obama,” who with VP Biden established the permanent Pandemic Response Unit within the National Security Council, able to rapidly respond in the U.S. to epidemics and work in concert with governments around the world to curb the spread of deadly diseases. Ebola and SARS outbreaks made it apparent we needed to be prepared for viral contagion that would more than likely arrive on our shores in the future.

The future arrived.

Before we dig into Trump dismantling the Pandemic Reponse Unit, let’s first recall that Trump has previously tried to slash funding to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), America’s preeminent authority on disease and pandemics. Unbelievably, he just proposed 16% in cuts to the CDC’s 2021 budget at the same time COVID-19 coronavirus arrived in the U.S.!

When first questioned about why he disbanded the Pandemic Response Unit in 2018 — the same year Trump and Republicans had no problem giving a trillion dollar tax cut to people who didn’t need it— he responded:

"I'm a business person," he explained two weeks ago in response to a similar question. "I don't like having thousands of people around when you don't need them. When we need them, we can get them back very quickly."

Except you can’t reassemble a team like that ‘very quickly.’ One more check mark in the long column of items on the “Trump is clueless about ...’ list. This one glaringly evidencing how utterly devoid he is in understanding, concern, or interest in how the executive branch should work.

Not to mention his absolute disregard as president in fulfilling his duty to protect American lives behind the scenes when the cameras aren’t rolling. When they are, he pompously pretends to have it all under control. His ego-driven dysfunction has put the health of all Americans in jeopardy.

We don’t yet know the extent of contagion because we haven’t had enough tests to go around. And the Trump administration wouldn’t allow independent testing.

As the threat to the U.S. grew, late last week he spewed a word salad of a different excuse when pressed again by a reporter about his 2018 decision to disband the pandemic response team we sure could have used right about now:

"I just think this is something, Peter, that you can never really think is going to happen. You know, who -- I've heard all about, 'This could be...' -- you know, 'This could be a big deal,' from before it happened. You know, this -- something like this could happen.... Who would have thought? Look, how long ago is it? Six, seven, eight weeks ago -- who would have thought we would even be having the subject? ... You never really know when something like this is going to strike and what it's going to be."

So, let’s get this straight: he disbanded the NSC Pandemic Response Unit because he never realized America might need it one day (and “de-Obamacizing, no doubt).

Hm. Does having a military ‘just in case’ there’s an attack on the U.S., or the presidential bunker he can retreat to ‘just in case’ ring a bell? Or why we have fire departments ‘just in case’ there’s a fire? Helllllllo?

It’s clear the concept of ‘insurance’ is foreign to him.

We need to get rid of this clueless, narcissistic moron in November and replace him with someone who’s dedicated to the welfare of the American people instead of dedication to his self interests and daily displays of pomposity.

There is so much at stake in November.

I’m Voting Blue No Matter Who.