WASHINGTON After seven weeks of downplaying the threat of a looming pandemic, President Donald Trump has gone back to a favorite well: blaming his predecessor, Barack Obama .

We inherited a broken, obsolete system, Trump said Sunday, the third straight White House briefing in which he has blamed his administrations slow response to the coronavirus pandemic on Obama, even though Trump has been in office now a full three years and two months.

We took over an obsolete, broken testing system that wouldnt have worked for even a small problem, let alone one of the biggest pandemics in history, Trump said Saturday, a day after claiming: We inherited a broken, old frankly, a terrible system.

It is unclear what system Trump was referring to. His administrations failure to aggressively ramp up coronavirus testing in early February and prepare hospitals for a surge of critical respiratory cases, experts said, was largely due to his own attempts to downplay the virus to avoid hurting the stock market and, in turn, his own reelection.

His entire campaign this year will be to blame someone for whats happening, said Joe Walsh, a former Illinois congressman who unsuccessfully ran against Trump for the 2020 nomination. The Chinese, Obama, the scientists and experts.