12:06 a.m. ET, October 8, 2020
Fact check: Claims that the White House pandemic team was disbanded
From CNN's Marshall Cohen
Vice President Mike Pence and Kamala Harris briefly rehashed a dispute that has been a part of the political wrangling over Covid-19 — whether or not the Trump White House disbanded an Obama-era pandemic team.
Harris said the Obama administration “created within the White House, an office that basically was responsible for monitoring pandemics” and claimed that the Trump administration “got rid of it.” Pence responded, “Not true.”
Facts First: That the Trump administration got rid of the office is true, but it’s complicated. The White House pandemic team was disbanded under Trump, but some of the public health officials on the team were kept onboard and reassigned to related roles. It’s impossible to know if this move led to the bungled US response to Covid-19, but many leading public health experts have said the US was better off with the pandemic team intact.
Two things are clear: Number one, the Obama administration created a specific team on the National Security Council to handle pandemic preparation and global health. Number two, that team no longer exists.
The official who was in charge, Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer, departed in 2018. Around that time, John Bolton became Trump’s new national security adviser and reshuffled the NSC, which included changes to the pandemic team.
CNN previously reported that another official with a similar purview has less authority than Ziemer had before he left.
Regarding the fate of the
White House pandemic team, it depends on who you ask. Trump critics and former Obama administration officials say the team was fired, eliminated or disbanded. Trump and his conservative allies say the group was streamlined, reorganized or reassigned.
Beth Cameron, who led the pandemic team after it was created by the Obama White House,
said Trump “dissolved” the office and that this move significantly hampered the US response to Covid-19. Tim Morrison, who oversaw the new operation in the Trump administration,
said the merged group of NSC officials was “stronger because related expertise could be commingled.”
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