Sen. Durbin says Trump administration left the nation ill-equipped

Posted on March 12, 2021
Sen. Dick Durbin. (Photo courtesy: WJBC/File)

By Dave Dahl

SPRINGFIELD – A year into the coronavirus crucible, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) says we got off to a bad start. Durbin says the Trump administration left the nation ill-equipped.

“In the first year, we have learned that this has tested America,” Durbin told a virtual news conference Friday. “There are many areas of our system that are breaking and were not responsible when we needed them. We can make certain that that is changed.”

The grade for that test? Not a good one.

“When you consider the fact that we have five percent of the world’s population and we ended up with twenty percent of the infections and deaths – four times what we might have expected – there is just no excuse for that.

“We should have been prepared.”

Durbin says Americans would have taken it seriously early on … if then-President Donald Trump had.

Dave Dahl can be reached at [email protected]. 

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