The official who once ran the White House pandemic program dismissed a false Democratic talking point that Trump eliminated the pandemic-response team and criticized reporters for parroting the claim in news stories.
"No, the White House didn’t ‘dissolve’ its pandemic response office. I was there,"
wrote former National Security Council adviser Tim Morrison for the
Washington Post on Monday.
"It has been alleged by multiple officials of the Obama administration, including in
The Post, that the president and his then-national security adviser, John Bolton, ‘dissolved the office' at the White House in charge of pandemic preparedness," Morrison wrote. "Because I led the very directorate assigned that mission, the counterproliferation and biodefense office, for a year and then handed it off to another official who still holds the post, I know the charge is specious."