In a new interview with Yahoo Finance, former Obama official Janet Napolitano sharply criticized President Donald Trump’s arguably uneven response to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

“One of the problems we've seen in this pandemic is the White House, and by the White House. I mean, really, the president has been all over the map,” Napolitano, former Department of Homeland Security Secretary, told Yahoo Finance on Wednesday.

Indeed, Trump appeared to ignore early warning signs that the new coronavirus could pose a serious threat in the U.S. After the first confirmed case in the U.S. was reported on Jan. 20, Trump’s economic adviser Peter Navarro warned his colleagues that this would be a devastating crisis, according to a memo that was just reported this week.

Trump proceeded to brush off the threat until March 13, when he declared COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, a national emergency. Now, the U.S. has over 450,000 confirmed cases and has lost 16 million jobs — 10% of the workforce — in a recent three-week period.

“First it was a little thing. Then it was a hoax and then it was a national emergency and then people are supposed to rush out and get prescriptions for chloroquine, which is a medication that hasn't been tested against COVID-19 but is used for other conditions,” said Napolitano, who’s currently president of the University of California.

“And the lack of coordination of the federal response, the management of the federal stockpile, the implementation of the Defense Production Act,” she added, referring to the law being invoked to produce desperately needed ventilators to treat patients with COVID-19.

Calling Trump’s direction during this time “slow and chaotic,” Napolitano pointed out that Americans are increasingly looking to their local elected officials, especially governors, for guidance.

“Clear, consistent, persistent messaging from the leadership is really what the country needs...empower people with knowledge and facts. That's the way to manage a crisis. And unfortunately, I would say that we really haven't seen that out of the president, but we have seen it out of the governors, most governors,” she added.

‘A jungle out there’

As the health crisis exists in clusters, the onus has been put on individual cities and states to move swiftly — whether it’s holding daily briefings, banning large gatherings, implementing shelter-in-place orders, and scrambling to find basic personal protective equipment to medical staff.

“We still have kind of a jungle out there... where states are competing against other states to get what they need and hospital systems are competing, which all has the effect of jacking up the price, by the way,” she said.