AP FACT CHECK: Trump misrepresents Obama's actions on H1N1

WASHINGTON (AP) — One day, President Donald Trump boasted of “smooth” coronavirus testing across the country. The next day, he pronounced the testing system inadequate, and assailed the public-health bureaucracy, Barack Obama and Joe Biden for not fixing it before he became president.

But nothing changed in that system over those two days — Thursday and Friday — except Trump's stated opinion of it.

Trump has been saying inaccurately for days that the public health system was up and ready to give access to diagnostic tests for COVID-19 for everyone who needed them. He said a week ago the “beautiful" tests were there for all in need.

That's not true. But after the government's top infection expert told lawmakers Thursday that the testing system has been a failure, Trump's boasts about preparedness became even less tenable.

In tweets Friday, he switched to blaming the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Obama administration, and seemed to hold them responsible for needless deaths in another pandemic. His account is inaccurate.

TRUMP: “For decades the @CDCgov looked at, and studied, its testing system, but did nothing about it. It would always be inadequate and slow for a large scale pandemic, but a pandemic would never happen, they hoped. President Obama made changes that only complicated things further... Their response to H1N1 Swine Flu was a full scale disaster, with thousands dying, and nothing meaningful done to fix the testing problem, until now. The changes have been made and testing will soon happen on a very large scale basis. All Red Tape has been cut, ready to go!”

THE FACTS: His newfound disdain for the CDC's actions and his criticisms of Obama and Biden are based on a faulty description of what happened in the 2009 H1N1...