Donald Trump said on Monday morning there are some simple reasons he doesn’t trust the U.S. government to handle the Ebola outbreak. Among them: Obamacare and Benghazi.
Trump, who has been vocal about Ebola, made his comments during a call to the Fox News show “Fox and Friends.”
“I think very few people trust our government as being competent,” Trump told the hosts. “Let’s not kid ourselves. I mean with the five billion dollar website for Obamacare, which is still not working frankly and it’s a disaster. And so many other things: Benghazi, wars… IRS.”
“I mean we have virtually incompetent leadership,” Trump continued. “So why would anybody trust our government to handle this crisis? And to think that we’re allowing people from West Africa to come in, and many of them are unchecked, come in and potentially cause a tremendous problem.”
Trump, a proponent of travel restrictions, weighed in on the idea that isolating countries with Ebola was detrimental to the overall efforts to stem the spread of the disease.
“I think it’s ridiculous,” he said. “As far as, you know, giving supplies and providing medical supplies, I’m all for that. And even if doctors want to go there and help, I think I’m all for that too. But you know they do have to suffer consequences. It’s a real problem.”
Trump’s comments mirror his reaction in August to the news that two American aid workers were being brought back to the U.S. for treatment after contracting Ebola. Trump took to Twitter to say the workers should be kept overseas.
“The U.S. cannot allow EBOLA infected people back,” Trump tweeted at the time. “People that go to far away places to help out are great-but must suffer the consequences!”
On Monday, Trump also questioned the reassurances of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“It’s interesting, I watch all the time where this gentleman from CDC is saying you don’t catch it, you can’t catch it, it’s almost like impossible to catch,” Trump said. “And yet an NBC reporter goes over there, a photographer, and gets Ebola. And I’m trying to find out how did he get it? I mean, what did he do to get it? I can’t imagine he was touching lots of folks. That’s what he was over there for. So how did he end up, that’s going to be an interesting one. How did this gentleman catch Ebola?”
