Mitch McConnell apologizes to Obama "I'm sorry Obama, you did leave Trump a 69 page pandemic plan but Trump never read it"

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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell walked back his claim that the Obama administration didn't leave President Donald Trump a plan for pandemics, saying he made a mistake.

McConnell said in a Trump campaign livestreamed event this week that the Obama administration didn't leave Trump "any kind of game plan for something like this."

Obama administration officials quickly pushed back on McConnell's claim.

"The maddening thing is Obama left them a WH office for pandemics, a literal playbook, a cabinet-level exercise, and a global infrastructure to deal with 'something like this,'" said Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser.

"We literally left them a 69-page Pandemic Playbook.... that they ignored. And an office called the Pandemic Preparedness Office... that they abolished. And a global monitoring system called PREDICT .. that they cut by 75%," said Ronald Klain, former Vice President Joe Biden's chief of staff.

"I was wrong," McConnell said in an interview with Fox News' Bret Baier on Thursday. "They did leave behind a plan. So I clearly made a mistake in that regard."

He added: "As to whether or not the plan was followed, who's the critic and all the rest, I don't have any observation about that because I don't know enough about the details of that, Bret, to comment on it in any detail."

The playbook left by the Obama administration included details about personal protective equipment and the White House's responsibility to take charge during a pandemic, Politico reported on March 25.

"The American public will look to the U.S. government for action when multi-state or other significant events occur," the playbook said.

Politico also reported on March 16 that Obama officials conducted a training exercise with incoming Trump administration officials about how to deal with a pandemic. The report described some Trump administration officials as dismissive and said Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross fell asleep. (A representative for Ross denied that he did.)