Trump says he met Obama only once, at Bush funeral, since taking office: 'I said hello and then I said goodbye'
President Donald Trump lashed out at his predecessor Barack Obama on March 5 night making it evident once again that he has little liking for the latter’s job at the White House and said they have spoken only once since he started his term in January 2017.
The Republican also said during his Fox News town hall that they were saving the country after the likes of Obama and Joe Biden, the former Vice President who is running for the presidency this year, left the country in a “mess”.
About meeting Obama, who became the first black president of the US in 2009, Trump said his meeting with the former president at the Oval Office in November 2016 was “essentially” their only meeting. He said that one meeting was "enough for him."
He also said that the last time he spoke to Obama was at the funeral of former president George H W Bush at Washington National Cathedral in December 2018.
“I was at the funeral of President Bush, sat next to him, I said 'hello.' And then I said 'Goodbye.' That's about it. No, I didn't like the job he did,” the 73-year-old who is seeking his re-election this year, said.
Trump and Obama have had their share of exchanges when the latter was still in office and it is said that it was Obama’s mocking of the business tycoon at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner that had made the latter decide to run for the top post.
At his first town hall meeting of this election year, Trump defended his administration’s response to coronavirus and held Obama responsible for the lack of testing kits, a claim which has though been debunked.
“I don't blame anybody. I want to get everybody to understand they made some decisions which were not good decisions. We inherited decisions they made and that's fine. We undid some of the regulations that made it very difficult,” Trump said when asked the reason why he blamed Obama.
The Trump administration has been facing flak over its handling of the coronavirus threat that has claimed quite a few lives in the US and after putting Vice President Mike Pence in charge of the administration’s response to the menace. Trump has tried to deflect criticism of his administration by blaming the previous dispensation for a federal regulation that made it challenging to enact widespread testing. The accusation though has been found out to be untrue.
On Thursday, Trump, who had earlier claimed that there was not a single death from coronavirus in the US, said the country has a low number of confirmed cases and deaths when compared to other countries.