Barack Obama was 'grossly incompetent president', says Donald Trump after coronavirus COVID-19 criticism

US President Donald Trump on Sunday (May 17) hit back at his predecessor Barack Obama over the latter's criticism of Washington's response to coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak and said that Obama was a "grossly incompetent President".

"He (Obama) was an incompetent president, a grossly incompetent president. That's all I can say," Trump told reporters after arriving at the White House.

On Saturday (May 16), Obama had slammed President Trump for failing to handle the coronavirus pandemic properly, accusing Trump administrationof of not "even pretending" to be in charge in the nation's fight against COVID-19 and raising the wrong questions.

The former US president made the remarks in a speech to high school graduates of 74 historically black colleges and universities across the US.

Notably, Obama preferred not to name President Trump in his address but his comments echoed criticism of the Trump administration that were levelled in April by him in a video endorsement of former vice president Joe Biden, reported The Washington Post.

Obama had said then that the COVID-19 pandemic has shown that "having leaders who are informed and honest and seek to bring people together" matters.

"More than anything, this pandemic has fully, finally torn back the curtain on the idea that so many of the folks in charge know what they're doing," Obama told college and university graduates on Saturday.

"A lot of them aren't even pretending to be in charge," he added.

It is to be noted that the US with approximately 15,15,310 coronavirus cases remained the worst-hit country in the world. The US on Sunday registered 7,530 infections.

The coronavirus pandemic in the last 24 hours infected more than 54,900 people globally and took over 2,260 lives, according to the COVID-19 data by the Worldometer website.

As of 11:45 PM IST on Sunday (May 17, 2020), the total number of coronavirus infections in the world increased to 47,71,910. The number of COVID-19 deaths surged to 3,15,170 while over 18,44,030 have recovered from the virus.