US President Donald Trump speaks on the day he makes an announcement regarding personal investment accounts for children in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., US, October 7, 2026. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
The Trump administration's seemingly flippant response to a new plague discovered in Russia left two political analysts stupefied Wednesday.
Last week, the World Health Organization reported the discovery of a pneumonic plague in Russia after a 28-year-old lab worker died. Russian authorities have denied the cause of the lab worker's death, although the case has raised a specter of concern about another COVID-19-like plague spreading across the globe.
In turn, Trump officials have been quick to dismiss concerns about the plague. For instance, Trump claimed that pneumonia has "gotten stronger" over the years and the administration "will help them." Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the administration is "watching and monitoring it closely."
The answers from the administration officials stupefied former Obama administration staffers Tommy Vietor and Ben Rhodes, who discussed it on a new episode of their podcast, "Pod Save the World."
"As we learned in COVID, transparency is your only friend when you're dealing with these types of things," Rhodes said. "And if you have these discrepancies between local authorities and the Kremlin, it makes you wonder what in the world you can trust, and that's concerning."
"This is just highlighting, once again, that when you have a breakdown in geopolitical trust ... you just feel like this stuff happens and you hope it doesn't get worse because it doesn't seem like Trump, or Rubio, or the World Health Organization are going to share information to keep this thing in a box," Rhodes added.
Vietor took issue with the way Trump communicates with the American public about it.
"Trump is a g------- idiot," Vietor said.