I really wish people would stop trying to gaslight all of us into believing the current crisis is just business as usual.

Yes, previous US presidents told some lies.

Yes, previous US presidents and politicians had some unsavory associations or potential conflicts of interest.

Yes, previously some labs spent too much time writing grants and not enough actually doing research.

The problem is, these things are becoming the norm now, and your anecdotal memory of "aw, man, we spent all our time doing that back in the day!" is not a reliable indicator that really, nothing has changed, we should just stop complaining. Especially since we know that human memory is not only fallible, it is prone to specifically being better at remembering the exceptional, and the unpleasant.