Comic Strips

Did you know that there was a specific pandemic response team established as part of the Global Health Security and Biodefense unit by the Obama administration in 2015? And that that team was eliminated and its staff reassigned by the Trump administration in 2018?

It's thus true that the Trump administration axed the executive branch team responsible for coordinating a response to a pandemic and did not replace it, eliminating Ziemer's position and reassigning others, although Bolton was the executive at the top of the National Security Council chain of command at the time.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/

In May 2018, the team was disbanded and its head Timothy Ziemer, top White House official in the NSC for leading U.S. response against a pandemic, left the Trump administration, the Washington Post reported ( here ). Some members of the global health and security team were merged into other units within the NSC, the article said.

[...]

There is disagreement over how to describe the changes at the NSC’s Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense in 2018. The departure of some members due to “streamlining” efforts under John Bolton is documented. The “pandemic response team” as a unit was largely disbanded.

https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN21C32C/

Since COVID-19 exploded in the states, both Vice President Mike Pence as head of the coronavirus task force, and Jared Kushner, have somewhat stepped into the role. But there has yet to be a whole-of-government mobilization, as Monaco described. Instead, the response has been ad hoc, shifting day to day depending on the mood of the president who has refused to accept that the buck stops with him.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/05/trump-obama-coronavirus-pandemic-response

The Democratic party established a team specifically intended to respond to crises such as COVID-19. The Republican party removed it to cut costs.