GOP congressman -- who warned Trump about pandemics -- offers pointed criticism of proposed CDC cuts

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Analysis: Conservative congressman — who warned Trump about pandemics — offers pointed criticism of proposed CDC cuts

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The Fix • Analysis

GOP congressman — who warned Trump about pandemics — offers pointed criticism of proposed CDC cuts

By Aaron Blake
March 10, 2020 at 3:53 p.m. EDT

This was the day Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) has been warning about — and essentially predicted. Back in 2017, when the Trump administration first proposed steep cuts to programs that handle disease outbreaks, Cole said, “I promise you the president is much more likely in his term to have a deal with a pandemic than an act of terrorism. I hope he doesn’t have to deal with either one, but you have to be ready to deal with both.”

Now that the potential pandemic has come, Cole is re-upping his long-standing criticisms of the Trump administration’s posture toward preparedness. And on Tuesday, he offered a little bit of an “I told you so,” even suggesting that the situation might not be as bad if the administration had listened to him.

At a House subcommittee hearing featuring Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield, Cole offered some veiled rebukes of how the administration has worked with people like him on this issue.

“Your requirement is to come and do what you all do, and that’s defend the presidential budget,” Cole told Redfield and the other officials testifying. “But I would just submit for the record that administrations would be a lot better off had they listened to us several years ago in this area, and we would all collectively be better off. And I hope we all learn a lesson from that.”

Cole said that the outbreak of coronavirus is a “sort of vindication of the bipartisan judgment over the last several years that this was really an area we needed to make investments.”

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Aaron Blake
Aaron Blake is senior political reporter, writing for The Fix. A Minnesota native, he has also written about politics for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and The Hill newspaper. Follow https://twitter.com/aaronblake

[Backseat Driver]

1. I suspect that at whatever level the CDC was funded, the greed of private

corporate non-governmental R&D developers would create a "family feud" of process chaos and access of best "therapy." Defunding cannot be a good answer, however, when a uncontrolled pandemic can impact the world economies. However this illness plays itself, it's now in our environment for keeps as is or until it changes?, for better or worse, as a human pathogen, or can be controlled or its contagion mitigated; hence, knowledge is power. As is a usual problem, the condition of the personal immune system, seems important for survival as those with younger and less compromised immune systems seem better off and those that are taxed/stressed by older age or under more severe immune stressors including the mere proximity to those so afflicted.

[Karadeniz]

2. "Veiled" criticism. ..looked like a slap on the face to me. Never thought I'd be.glad about an

Oklahoma republican, but there you go!