Saturday, March 28, 2020

Trump again claims he’s invoked the Defense Production Act – then backtracks saying ‘maybe we won’t need’ to fully use it



President Donald Trump Friday afternoon announced he has invoked the Defense Production Act to require GM to produce vitally-needed life-saving ventilators. But it’s not the first time has and his administration have claimed the DPA was being used to require the production of critical equipment, nor is it being used as it should be.

In announcing he had finally invoked it, to force GM to make ventilators they already have announced they will produce, Trump immediately backtracked, nonsensically saying he might not need to fully use the law.

“I’ve enacted the Act, we’ve used it three of four times,” Trump said, which is a lie, claiming “the companies came through in the end they didn’t need the Act.”

That’s not how the law works.

“It’s been great leverage I have instituted it against General Electric, we thought we had a deal for 40,000 ventilators,” Trump claimed, which again is false, it was for 20,000.

“We did activate it with respect to General Motors and hopefully – maybe we won’t need the full activation we’ll find out,” he said, after calling the car company “General Electric.”

Here’s Trump saying of the Defense Production Act that “I have instituted it against General Electric,” then saying 30 seconds later that “we did activate it with respect to General Motors”  pic.twitter.com/VyvXBJa6l0
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 27, 2020

Every day that went by that the DPA remained unused is a day in the future more people will die, literally unable to breathe due to an insufficient number of ventilators across the nation.


Trump finally invokes Defense Production Act to force GM to manufacture ventilators

March 27, 2020 By Bob Brigham

President Donald Trump is using the Defense Production Act to force General Motors to manufacture the medical ventilators that are necessary to respond to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

Peter Baker, the chief White House correspondent for The New York Times, reported the news on Twitter.

The order Trump signs directs Azar "to require General Motors Company to accept, perform, and prioritize contracts or orders for the number of ventilators that the Secretary determines to be appropriate."
— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) March 27, 2020

The announcement came after Trump publicly complained his failure to use the Defense Production Act was not working.

As usual with “this” General Motors, things just never seem to work out. They said they were going to give us 40,000 much needed Ventilators, “very quickly”. Now they are saying it will only be 6000, in late April, and they want top dollar. Always a mess with Mary B. Invoke “P”.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 27, 2020

General Motors MUST immediately open their stupidly abandoned Lordstown plant in Ohio, or some other plant, and START MAKING VENTILATORS, NOW!!!!!! FORD, GET GOING ON VENTILATORS, FAST!!!!!! @GeneralMotors @Ford

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 27, 2020

It has been nine days since Trump invoked the powers of the Defense Production Act.

I only signed the Defense Production Act to combat the Chinese Virus should we need to invoke it in a worst case scenario in the future. Hopefully there will be no need, but we are all in this TOGETHER!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2020




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