Robert Costa, Aaron Gregg WASHINGTON POST
President Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic sparked uproar and alarm among governors and mayors on Sunday as Trump and his administration’s top advisers continued to make confusing statements about the federal government’s scramble to confront the crisis, including whether he will force private industry to mass produce needed medical items.
As deaths climbed and ahead of a potentially dire week, Trump — who has sought to cast himself as a wartime leader — reacted to criticism that his administration has blundered with a torrent of soaring boasts and searing grievances. He tweeted that Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) and others “shouldn’t be blaming the Federal Government for their own shortcomings. We are there to back you up should you fail, and always will be!”
Trump changed his tone at an evening news conference, however, touting an “amazing” relationship with New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) and saying governors he spoke with on Sunday will be “very happy” with the upcoming federal response.
“The governors, locally, are going to be in command,” Trump said, as he pledged support from the National Guard and federal agencies. “We will be following them, and we hope they can do the job. And I think they will.”
But the growing gulf between the White House and officials on the front lines of the pandemic underscored concerns in cities, states and Congress that Trump does not have a coherent or ready plan to mobilize private and public entities to confront a crisis that could soon push the nation’s health-care system to the brink of collapse.
“We’re all building the airplane as we fly it right now,” Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) said on ABC’s “This Week.” “It would be nice to have a national strategy.”
Uncertainty prompted by the Trump administration’s statements abounded amid the rancor. Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Peter T. Gaynor said Sunday the president has not yet invoked the Defense Production Act, which would allow the government to order companies to ramp up the production of ventilators and protective masks, among other products.
Gaynor’s remarks directly contradicted what Trump told reporters on Friday, when he said he had “invoked” the law and “put it into gear” — and were coupled with vague optimism about corporate America’s ability to do what is necessary without being compelled by an executive order.
“We haven’t yet,” Gaynor said on CNN’s “State of the Union,” when asked whether Trump has ordered companies to make supplies. He described the Defense Production Act as “leverage” as the administration moves forward and said, “If it comes to a point we have to pull the lever, we will.”
In the meantime, Gaynor said the administration is pleased with how corporations are responding to the pandemic. “It’s really amazing how great America is,” he said. “All these companies are coming up, asking us what they can do to help.”
Trump tweeted on Sunday, “Ford, General Motors and Tesla are being given the go ahead to make ventilators and other metal products, FAST!”
“Go for it auto execs, let’s see how good you are?” Trump added.
© Patrick Semansky/AP President Trump speaks during a
coronavirus task force briefing at the White House on Sunday.
Major auto companies signaled last week that they are studying the feasibility of making ventilators but made no promises about the pace of production, should it begin. A spokesperson for Ford said, “Ford stands ready to help the administration in any way we can, including the possibility of producing ventilators and other equipment.”
There are many obstacles. Ford, General Motors and Fiat Chrysler — the Big Three automakers — have suspended production at their North American plants through at least the end of March because of the coronavirus and after union leaders sought that pause.
The administration’s sunny outlook about companies’ ability to act was met with sharp disagreement from governors facing mounting illness and deaths from covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
“We need the product now,” Cuomo said at a news conference on Sunday. “We have cries from hospitals around the state. I’ve spoken to governors around the country, and they’re in the same situation.”
Cuomo said the Trump administration must “order factories” to make “essential supplies” and invoke the Defense Production Act as soon as possible, calling it the “difference between life and death.”
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Sunday that there are now 8,000 cases in his city, with 60 deaths. He pleaded with Trump to deploy the military to the nation’s financial capital, home to more than 8 million people.
“April is going to be a lot worse than March, and May could be worse than April,” de Blasio said. “We are very much on our own at this point.”
Anthony S. Fauci — director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and an influential nonpartisan adviser to Trump — appeared to defend the president’s decision-making.
“What the president was saying is that these companies are coming forth on their own,” Fauci said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “I think that’s an extraordinary spirit of the American spirit of not needing to be coaxed. They’re stepping forward. They’re making not only masks, but [personal protective equipment] and now ventilators.”
Many governors and mayors said they feel ill-equipped for the coming storm, particularly the expected deluge of patients at hospitals and health centers.
Pritzker said on CNN that his state has received about a quarter of the personal protective equipment it has ordered from the federal government.
“I’ve got people working the phones calling across the world, frankly, to get this stuff to Illinois,” Pritzker said, as he worried that states are probably “overpaying” in part because of the lack of decisive action by Trump.
On Twitter, Trump dismissed Pritzker as part of a cabal aligned against him that includes “a very small group of certain other Governors” and cable news networks, which he disparaged as “fake news.”
But Democrats were not Trump’s lone critics on Sunday. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a centrist Republican, said the Trump administration, through FEMA, “has to take the lead” in securing medical items.
“We are getting some progress. Now, it’s not nearly enough. It’s not fast enough. We’re way behind the curve,” Hogan said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” as he detailed how Maryland is scrambling to find supplies without any guarantees from the federal government.
Gaynor, however, did not offer any assurances.
“What I’ll say is if you can find it on the open market, go buy it,” Gaynor said on NBC. “Any governor that needs it, and you find it, go buy it. FEMA will reimburse you under this emergency.”
He added, “I hope no one is hoarding” masks “because we’re all in this together.”
Turmoil at hospitals is challenging governors by the hour. Speaking Sunday on CBS, Richard Pollack, president of the American Hospital Association, said “the most immediate thing we need is personal protective equipment: the masks, the gowns, the goggles, that type of equipment to protect our health-care heroes that are on the front lines. That is what is most essential now. If we don’t protect our health-care workers, the system will completely collapse.”
Last week, Trump invoked rarely used wartime powers and announced the deployment of two naval ships as he tried to boost the federal response to the coronavirus outbreak after days of bureaucratic delays and missteps.
“We’ll be invoking the Defense Production Act, just in case we need it,” Trump said, referring to the 1950 law. “It can do a lot of good things if we need it.”
But Trump’s plans were ambiguous, and it remained unclear Sunday how he would implement them.
The president first said Wednesday, on Twitter, that he would be using the broad authorities granted by the act only if needed in a “worst-case scenario.” By Friday, Trump said he had formally invoked the Defense Production Act, “and last night, we put it into gear.”
Behind the scenes, the Trump administration has activated only a very limited set of authorities under the law, including a provision that allows the government to jump the line when ordering from U.S. manufacturers. The more extreme provisions in the law — including authorities that could allow it to take control of private airplanes or use federal funds to get other industries involved — have not been announced.
Click to expand
We're sorry, this video can't be played.
When pressed at Sunday’s news conference on why he is not exerting more federal power under the act, Trump suggested it would be akin to countries such as Venezuela nationalizing industries.
“We’re a country not based on nationalizing our business,” Trump said. “The concept of nationalizing our business is not a good concept. . . . We have the threat of doing it if we need it.”
Former Pentagon officials who handled Defense Production Act policy for Democratic and Republican administrations said the Trump administration has so far made little use of the law.
“All of this should have started months ago, so we are behind,” said Bill Greenwalt, a defense consultant who led acquisition policy in the George W. Bush administration. “On production, I think we will find out that our base is not capable of producing what we need as I expect much of it has been outsourced to China and elsewhere.”
Gordon Adams, a former Clinton administration procurement official, said the administration’s efforts are months too late.
“It’s the right authority but it’s way late in the game,” Adams said. “We started hearing about Chinese cases in November. We probably should have been invoking DPA authorities in January or February. We had no plan.”
Fast-moving developments this week will increase pressure on Trump and agencies to offer more guidance and assistance.
Scott Gottlieb, a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration who was appointed by Trump, said on “Face the Nation”: “I think that the scenes out of New York are going to be shocking. I think that the hospitals in the next two weeks are going to be at the brink of being overwhelmed.”
Trump — who will be judged by voters at the polls in eight months — also faced criticism from former vice president Joe Biden, the delegate leader for the Democratic presidential nomination, who issued a statement in response to Gaynor’s interview on CNN.
“Mr. President, stop lying and start acting,” Biden said. “Use the full extent of your authorities, now, to ensure that we are producing all essential goods and delivering them where they need to go.”
robert.costa@washpost.com
aaron.gregg@washpost.com
Seung Min Kim and Toluse Olorunnipa contributed to this report.
Desperate and angry state leaders push back on Trump admin claims of mass mask shipments
By Alice Miranda Ollstein
Governors, mayors and front-line health care workers confronting rising numbers of critically ill coronavirus patients said Sunday they have not received meaningful amounts of federal aid, including the shipments of desperately needed masks and other emergency equipment that administration officials say they have already dispatched.
As the crisis spreads, the Senate was moving forward with a rare Sunday procedural vote despite a breakdown in negotiations between Democrats and Republicans on a third coronavirus aid package. Among the points of contention: funding for hospitals and conditions on the billions of dollars that would flow to impacted corporations. The Senate wants to pass the bill containing both broad economic stimulus measures and direct help for American families as early as Monday.
Meanwhile, the pressure on hospitals in hard-hit areas is mounting, and several Democratic governors are demanding a more coordinated national response to get supplies as fast as possible to where they are needed most critically. But President Donald Trump hit back at the governors' televised pleas, tweeting Sunday that they "shouldn't be blaming the Federal Goverment for their own shortcomings." He told the governors the federal government's role is to be there "to back you up should you fail, and always will be!"
“We are desperate,” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy told ABC Sunday morning. “We've had a big ask into the strategic stockpile in the White House. They've given us a fraction of our ask.”
“If you find it on the market, go ahead and buy it. FEMA will reimburse you for it,” he said. “This is a shared responsibility.”
Several governors pushed back, warning that pitting states against one another, the federal government, and other countries in a bidding war on the private market is no way to respond to a pandemic that requires a coordinated national response to obtain and allocate emergency goods.
“It’s a wide, Wild West…out there,” Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said of his attempts to obtain supplies. “And indeed we’re overpaying, I would say, for [personal protective equipment] because of that competition.”
"We need the federal government to get us those test kits,” Whitmer agreed. “We need PPEs. And frankly a patchwork strategy of each state doing what they can is — we’re going to do it if we have to, but it would be nice to have a national strategy.”
Governors, congressional lawmakers and mayors continued to plead with the White House over the weekend to use the powers of the Defense Production Act to speed up manufacture of masks, ventilators and other scarce supplies as many hospitals say they’re set to run out within days.
Trump also tweeted Sunday morning that he has given a handful of car companies "the go ahead" to make ventilators and other unnamed "metal products" for hospitals, but gave no indication of a timeline or quantity. Converting factories from making cars to making medical equipment cannot happen immediately, and could take several months. In the meantime, hospitals need immediate help.
Ford, General Motors and Tesla are being given the go ahead to make ventilators and other metal products, FAST! @fema Go for it auto execs, lets see how good you are? @RepMarkMeadows @GOPLeader @senatemajldr— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 22, 2020
“We've gotten no indication of any factory on 24/7 shifts. We've gotten no shipments,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said on NBC. “I can’t be blunt enough: If the president does not act, people will die who could have lived otherwise.”
De Blasio also called on the president to mobilize the military's health care workers to immediately deploy to coronavirus hot spots like his own city.
"All military personnel who are medically trained should be sent to places where this crisis is deep, like New York, right now," he said. "Why are they at their bases? Why are they not being allowed to serve? I guarantee you they're ready to serve. But the president has to give the order."
Though Trump signed the defense act last week, Gaynor confirmed that the administration has yet to use it to order any companies to manufacture more products. He suggested such a step wasn’t necessary as companies are already stepping up.
“We haven't had to use it, because companies around the country, donations, they are saying, ‘What can we do to help you?’ And it's happening without using that — that lever,” he said. “If it comes to a point where we have to pull the level, we will.”
Both in private calls with the White House and in public interviews, lawmakers are insisting that time is now.
“We cannot wait until people start really dying in large numbers to start production, especially of more complicated equipment like ventilators and hospital beds,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) told CNN. “We need to start this production right now to get ready for the surge that is coming in two to three weeks.”
Major auto companies signaled last week that they are studying the feasibility of making ventilators but made no promises about the pace of production, should it begin. A spokesperson for Ford said, “Ford stands ready to help the administration in any way we can, including the possibility of producing ventilators and other equipment.”
There are many obstacles. Ford, General Motors and Fiat Chrysler — the Big Three automakers — have suspended production at their North American plants through at least the end of March because of the coronavirus and after union leaders sought that pause.
The administration’s sunny outlook about companies’ ability to act was met with sharp disagreement from governors facing mounting illness and deaths from covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
“We need the product now,” Cuomo said at a news conference on Sunday. “We have cries from hospitals around the state. I’ve spoken to governors around the country, and they’re in the same situation.”
Cuomo said the Trump administration must “order factories” to make “essential supplies” and invoke the Defense Production Act as soon as possible, calling it the “difference between life and death.”
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Sunday that there are now 8,000 cases in his city, with 60 deaths. He pleaded with Trump to deploy the military to the nation’s financial capital, home to more than 8 million people.
“April is going to be a lot worse than March, and May could be worse than April,” de Blasio said. “We are very much on our own at this point.”
Anthony S. Fauci — director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and an influential nonpartisan adviser to Trump — appeared to defend the president’s decision-making.
“What the president was saying is that these companies are coming forth on their own,” Fauci said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “I think that’s an extraordinary spirit of the American spirit of not needing to be coaxed. They’re stepping forward. They’re making not only masks, but [personal protective equipment] and now ventilators.”
Many governors and mayors said they feel ill-equipped for the coming storm, particularly the expected deluge of patients at hospitals and health centers.
Pritzker said on CNN that his state has received about a quarter of the personal protective equipment it has ordered from the federal government.
“I’ve got people working the phones calling across the world, frankly, to get this stuff to Illinois,” Pritzker said, as he worried that states are probably “overpaying” in part because of the lack of decisive action by Trump.
On Twitter, Trump dismissed Pritzker as part of a cabal aligned against him that includes “a very small group of certain other Governors” and cable news networks, which he disparaged as “fake news.”
But Democrats were not Trump’s lone critics on Sunday. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a centrist Republican, said the Trump administration, through FEMA, “has to take the lead” in securing medical items.
“We are getting some progress. Now, it’s not nearly enough. It’s not fast enough. We’re way behind the curve,” Hogan said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” as he detailed how Maryland is scrambling to find supplies without any guarantees from the federal government.
Gaynor, however, did not offer any assurances.
“What I’ll say is if you can find it on the open market, go buy it,” Gaynor said on NBC. “Any governor that needs it, and you find it, go buy it. FEMA will reimburse you under this emergency.”
He added, “I hope no one is hoarding” masks “because we’re all in this together.”
Turmoil at hospitals is challenging governors by the hour. Speaking Sunday on CBS, Richard Pollack, president of the American Hospital Association, said “the most immediate thing we need is personal protective equipment: the masks, the gowns, the goggles, that type of equipment to protect our health-care heroes that are on the front lines. That is what is most essential now. If we don’t protect our health-care workers, the system will completely collapse.”
Last week, Trump invoked rarely used wartime powers and announced the deployment of two naval ships as he tried to boost the federal response to the coronavirus outbreak after days of bureaucratic delays and missteps.
“We’ll be invoking the Defense Production Act, just in case we need it,” Trump said, referring to the 1950 law. “It can do a lot of good things if we need it.”
But Trump’s plans were ambiguous, and it remained unclear Sunday how he would implement them.
The president first said Wednesday, on Twitter, that he would be using the broad authorities granted by the act only if needed in a “worst-case scenario.” By Friday, Trump said he had formally invoked the Defense Production Act, “and last night, we put it into gear.”
Behind the scenes, the Trump administration has activated only a very limited set of authorities under the law, including a provision that allows the government to jump the line when ordering from U.S. manufacturers. The more extreme provisions in the law — including authorities that could allow it to take control of private airplanes or use federal funds to get other industries involved — have not been announced.
Click to expand
We're sorry, this video can't be played.
When pressed at Sunday’s news conference on why he is not exerting more federal power under the act, Trump suggested it would be akin to countries such as Venezuela nationalizing industries.
“We’re a country not based on nationalizing our business,” Trump said. “The concept of nationalizing our business is not a good concept. . . . We have the threat of doing it if we need it.”
Former Pentagon officials who handled Defense Production Act policy for Democratic and Republican administrations said the Trump administration has so far made little use of the law.
“All of this should have started months ago, so we are behind,” said Bill Greenwalt, a defense consultant who led acquisition policy in the George W. Bush administration. “On production, I think we will find out that our base is not capable of producing what we need as I expect much of it has been outsourced to China and elsewhere.”
Gordon Adams, a former Clinton administration procurement official, said the administration’s efforts are months too late.
“It’s the right authority but it’s way late in the game,” Adams said. “We started hearing about Chinese cases in November. We probably should have been invoking DPA authorities in January or February. We had no plan.”
Fast-moving developments this week will increase pressure on Trump and agencies to offer more guidance and assistance.
Scott Gottlieb, a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration who was appointed by Trump, said on “Face the Nation”: “I think that the scenes out of New York are going to be shocking. I think that the hospitals in the next two weeks are going to be at the brink of being overwhelmed.”
Trump — who will be judged by voters at the polls in eight months — also faced criticism from former vice president Joe Biden, the delegate leader for the Democratic presidential nomination, who issued a statement in response to Gaynor’s interview on CNN.
“Mr. President, stop lying and start acting,” Biden said. “Use the full extent of your authorities, now, to ensure that we are producing all essential goods and delivering them where they need to go.”
robert.costa@washpost.com
aaron.gregg@washpost.com
Seung Min Kim and Toluse Olorunnipa contributed to this report.
Desperate and angry state leaders push back on Trump admin claims of mass mask shipments
By Alice Miranda Ollstein
Governors, mayors and front-line health care workers confronting rising numbers of critically ill coronavirus patients said Sunday they have not received meaningful amounts of federal aid, including the shipments of desperately needed masks and other emergency equipment that administration officials say they have already dispatched.
As the crisis spreads, the Senate was moving forward with a rare Sunday procedural vote despite a breakdown in negotiations between Democrats and Republicans on a third coronavirus aid package. Among the points of contention: funding for hospitals and conditions on the billions of dollars that would flow to impacted corporations. The Senate wants to pass the bill containing both broad economic stimulus measures and direct help for American families as early as Monday.
Meanwhile, the pressure on hospitals in hard-hit areas is mounting, and several Democratic governors are demanding a more coordinated national response to get supplies as fast as possible to where they are needed most critically. But President Donald Trump hit back at the governors' televised pleas, tweeting Sunday that they "shouldn't be blaming the Federal Goverment for their own shortcomings." He told the governors the federal government's role is to be there "to back you up should you fail, and always will be!"
“We are desperate,” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy told ABC Sunday morning. “We've had a big ask into the strategic stockpile in the White House. They've given us a fraction of our ask.”
© Misha Friedman/Getty Images A doctor examines someone for a COVID-19 test inside a tent at St. Barnabas hospital in New York City.Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer echoed that urgency, saying her state’s hospitals are dealing with about 800 confirmed cases of the virus — up from only one just 12 days ago — and are struggling with serious shortages of both test kits and protective equipment for medical workers. The shortages have forced hospitals to adopt risky practices like reusing masks and having staff wear bandanas when no mask is available.
A lack of personal protective equipment puts medical personnel at greater risk of becoming infected or placed in quarantine, exacerbating hospitals' existing staff shortages.
“We’ve got to have those masks,” Whitmer said. “Had the federal government really started focusing when it became clear that the whole world was going to be confronting this, we would be in a stronger position right now ... Lives will be lost because we weren’t prepared.”
The nation's main hospital association is also reporting ongoing gaps in the supply line, despite the mobilization of some federal aid from the Strategic National Stockpile, donations from other industries and other sources.
"There is a supply. Many people have them, but there's a gap and we're going to need more," Richard Pollack, the CEO of the American Hospital Association, told CBS. "If we don't protect our health care workers, the system will completely collapse."
Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Peter Gaynor, whose agency was not activated to run the pandemic response until Friday, painted a more optimistic picture in Sunday morning appearances on ABC and CNN. He said masks and other equipment in the Strategic National Stockpile are well on their way to states — particularly hard-hit areas like Washington, California and New York.
“They have been distributed. They've been distributed over the past couple of weeks. They're shipping today. They'll ship tomorrow,” Gaynor told ABC. “We are shipping from our national stockpile, we're shipping from vendors, we're shipping from donations. It is happening.”
Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at NIH, offered similar assurances on CBS' "Face the Nation."
"The resources that are being marshaled are going to be clearly directed to those hot spots that need it most," he said. "So not only is New York trying to get resources themselves, but we're going to be pouring it in from the federal government. So it would be a combination of local and federal. But it's very, very clear that they are a very high priority."
But Gaynor and other administration officials sidestepped repeated questions on exactly how many masks were being shipped and when they would be in the hands of doctors and nurses who need them.
“I can't give you a rough number,” he said in another interview on CNN, adding that governors should not depend on federal disbursements and should try on their own to obtain masks and other equipment.
Slide 1 of 50: Residents clap and bang utensils from their balconies to cheer for emergency personnel and sanitation workers who are on the frontlines in the fight against coronavirus, in Mumbai, India, March 22, 2020. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas
A lack of personal protective equipment puts medical personnel at greater risk of becoming infected or placed in quarantine, exacerbating hospitals' existing staff shortages.
“We’ve got to have those masks,” Whitmer said. “Had the federal government really started focusing when it became clear that the whole world was going to be confronting this, we would be in a stronger position right now ... Lives will be lost because we weren’t prepared.”
The nation's main hospital association is also reporting ongoing gaps in the supply line, despite the mobilization of some federal aid from the Strategic National Stockpile, donations from other industries and other sources.
"There is a supply. Many people have them, but there's a gap and we're going to need more," Richard Pollack, the CEO of the American Hospital Association, told CBS. "If we don't protect our health care workers, the system will completely collapse."
Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Peter Gaynor, whose agency was not activated to run the pandemic response until Friday, painted a more optimistic picture in Sunday morning appearances on ABC and CNN. He said masks and other equipment in the Strategic National Stockpile are well on their way to states — particularly hard-hit areas like Washington, California and New York.
“They have been distributed. They've been distributed over the past couple of weeks. They're shipping today. They'll ship tomorrow,” Gaynor told ABC. “We are shipping from our national stockpile, we're shipping from vendors, we're shipping from donations. It is happening.”
Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at NIH, offered similar assurances on CBS' "Face the Nation."
"The resources that are being marshaled are going to be clearly directed to those hot spots that need it most," he said. "So not only is New York trying to get resources themselves, but we're going to be pouring it in from the federal government. So it would be a combination of local and federal. But it's very, very clear that they are a very high priority."
But Gaynor and other administration officials sidestepped repeated questions on exactly how many masks were being shipped and when they would be in the hands of doctors and nurses who need them.
“I can't give you a rough number,” he said in another interview on CNN, adding that governors should not depend on federal disbursements and should try on their own to obtain masks and other equipment.
Slide 1 of 50: Residents clap and bang utensils from their balconies to cheer for emergency personnel and sanitation workers who are on the frontlines in the fight against coronavirus, in Mumbai, India, March 22, 2020. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas“If you find it on the market, go ahead and buy it. FEMA will reimburse you for it,” he said. “This is a shared responsibility.”
Several governors pushed back, warning that pitting states against one another, the federal government, and other countries in a bidding war on the private market is no way to respond to a pandemic that requires a coordinated national response to obtain and allocate emergency goods.
“It’s a wide, Wild West…out there,” Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said of his attempts to obtain supplies. “And indeed we’re overpaying, I would say, for [personal protective equipment] because of that competition.”
"We need the federal government to get us those test kits,” Whitmer agreed. “We need PPEs. And frankly a patchwork strategy of each state doing what they can is — we’re going to do it if we have to, but it would be nice to have a national strategy.”
Governors, congressional lawmakers and mayors continued to plead with the White House over the weekend to use the powers of the Defense Production Act to speed up manufacture of masks, ventilators and other scarce supplies as many hospitals say they’re set to run out within days.
Trump also tweeted Sunday morning that he has given a handful of car companies "the go ahead" to make ventilators and other unnamed "metal products" for hospitals, but gave no indication of a timeline or quantity. Converting factories from making cars to making medical equipment cannot happen immediately, and could take several months. In the meantime, hospitals need immediate help.
Ford, General Motors and Tesla are being given the go ahead to make ventilators and other metal products, FAST! @fema Go for it auto execs, lets see how good you are? @RepMarkMeadows @GOPLeader @senatemajldr— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 22, 2020
“We've gotten no indication of any factory on 24/7 shifts. We've gotten no shipments,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said on NBC. “I can’t be blunt enough: If the president does not act, people will die who could have lived otherwise.”
De Blasio also called on the president to mobilize the military's health care workers to immediately deploy to coronavirus hot spots like his own city.
"All military personnel who are medically trained should be sent to places where this crisis is deep, like New York, right now," he said. "Why are they at their bases? Why are they not being allowed to serve? I guarantee you they're ready to serve. But the president has to give the order."
Though Trump signed the defense act last week, Gaynor confirmed that the administration has yet to use it to order any companies to manufacture more products. He suggested such a step wasn’t necessary as companies are already stepping up.
“We haven't had to use it, because companies around the country, donations, they are saying, ‘What can we do to help you?’ And it's happening without using that — that lever,” he said. “If it comes to a point where we have to pull the level, we will.”
Both in private calls with the White House and in public interviews, lawmakers are insisting that time is now.
“We cannot wait until people start really dying in large numbers to start production, especially of more complicated equipment like ventilators and hospital beds,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) told CNN. “We need to start this production right now to get ready for the surge that is coming in two to three weeks.”
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