Madeleine Albright on Trump: ‘I’m very very troubled by his unpredictability’

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Wednesday she’s troubled by President Trump’s shifting message on the coronavirus pandemic and what she said is a lack of understanding of the Constitution. 

“I’m very, very troubled by his unpredictability and his swinging back and forth on what he says,” Albright said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “In fact it’s important to deliver a message if you’re president of the United States, one that makes some sense, and he’s not doing that.”

Albright, who served in the Clinton administration, said she is “stunned” by Trump’s “lack of complete understanding of what the Constitution says.” 

Albright cited the 10th Amendment, which states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”

“So he’s got it backwards, he’s got so many things backwards,” she said. 

Trump claimed earlier this week that he has the authority to reopen state economies after mass closures due to the coronavirus pandemic. 

At a briefing Monday, Trump said “numerous provisions” of the Constitution give him such authority but did not name them. He also described the authority he holds as commander in chief to be “total.” 

“The founders did not want to have a king, they did not want to have an authoritarian leader,” Albright said. 

She urged voters to be prepared for the November elections. 

“I do think we depend on the fact that democracy is not a spectator sport, that we have to participate in,” she said. 

Albright also said that she thinks China will have to answer for its lack of transparency over information about the coronavirus pandemic, but for now she said it’s most important for global leaders to work together in responding to the pandemic. 

“China is a rising power and we need to deal with them, but I do think ultimately we will have to go back and assess their culpability, but at the moment we will have to move forward trying to figure out how to deal with what is an international problem because the virus knows no borders,” Albright said. 

She made similar comments regarding China Tuesday night in an interview with Fox News’s Dana Perino. 

“Well, first of all, I think that China really does bear responsibility for a lot of the problems at the beginning, not having revealed any information, lack of transparency,” she said. 

Albright added that China is not going to avoid responsibility for their lack of transparency, but said for now “we now need to figure out how to solve some of the current problems that we’re having in terms of supply chain issues and dealing with this globally.”