Former White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany berated a White House staffer on Tuesday who had criticized the Trump administration for failing to prepare a sufficient plan to fight Covid-19 before leaving office.
During a podcast on Tuesday, White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre complained that Trump officials had not left the Biden administration with a sufficient response to the pandemic.
"There was absolutely no plans left for us on how to move forward from the previous administration to address any of it," Jean-Pierre said.
Later on Fox News, McEnany reacted to the remarks with anger.
"There she is blaming President Trump," McEnany said. "But I'm going to give you a direct quote from President Joe Biden. This is the direct quote: 'President Trump does not have a plan; I do.' He told us he had a secret plan in the basement. That was obviously a lie!"
"So now they're not just admitting they didn't have a plan, they're saying Trump didn't leave us one," she continued. "Hold up. Yes, President Trump left you a plan, 800 million vaccines contracted for, contracted for with Operation Warp Speed. We upscaled testing. There were no tests when President Trump came into office. This was a novel pathogen. Testing was upscaled 3,200% between March and July."
According to McEnany, Trump left Biden "the most advanced testing system in the world."
"So, Karine Jean-Pierre, I don't want to hear from you, you weren't left a plan!" McEnany exclaimed. "You were left a plan and you burned it to the ground and now you've left Americans devastated without tests and Covid raging across the country!"
Sources told CNN last year that the incoming Biden administration was surprised to find that the Trump administration did not leave a detailed plan for distributing vaccines.