House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) criticized President Donald Trump for his administration’s “chaotic response” to the global outbreak of coronavirus at her weekly press briefing on Thursday.

Pelosi said, “Up until now, the Trump administration has offered an opaque and chaotic response to this outbreak. They left critical positions vacant in charge of handling pandemics at the national security council also on the Department of Homeland Security. They left them vacant. They dismissed the people and never filled the spots. They were there from previous administrations.”

She continued, “The Trump budget calls for slashing almost seven hundred million dollars from the Centers for Diseases Control. And this was the budget which came out after we knew about the coronavirus threat.”

On the subject of the president appointing Vice President Mike Pence to lead coronavirus response, Pelosi said, “I spoke with the vice president this morning. I made some of these concerns known to him. We have always had a very candid relationship, and I expressed to him the concerns I had about him being in this position—while I look forward to working with him — about his when he was governor of Indiana slashing the public health budget.”

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