Elizabeth Warren Demands Investigations Into Trump's Shambolic Coronavirus Response

[deminks]

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/04/elizabeth-warren-trump-coronavirus-investigations

In January, or 37 lifetimes ago in Trump years, Elizabeth Warren released a plan to address the novel coronavirus that had already engulfed China and was spreading around the world. Among other things, the then Democratic candidate called for increased funding for agencies like the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; ensuring that hospitals had adequate levels of necessary equipment; and partnering with foreign governments and multilateral organizations. Weirdly, nowhere in Warren’s plan did she call for misleading the public about the threat of the disease; distributing supplies only to states that sufficiently kissed her ass; delaying stimulus checks so her name could be printed on them; using briefings to brag about what a great job she’d done; or empowering her son-in-law to prioritize aid as he, in his estimable opinion, saw fit. Of course, such approaches feature heavily in Donald Trump’s shambolic response to the coronavirus crisis, leading Warren and other lawmakers to demand investigations into the administration’s handling of COVID-19.

In a letter to the inspector generals at Homeland Security and HHS—watchdogs Trump has not yet gotten around to firing—Warren and nine other Democratic senators write that the “slow distribution of supplies,” including personal protective equipment (PPE) and ventilators, along with an astonishing lack of transparency, “suggest a process plagued by confusion, inconsistency, and potential political interference.” For instance, Massachusetts, one of the first states hit by the coronavirus, has received “only a fraction of its request for PPE and other medical supplies” from the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) while Florida was able to obtain 100% of the supplies it asked for within three days of doing so, as well as the full quantity of a follow-up order. How did such a discrepancy come to pass? Warren and company have an idea!

(snip)

Also curious? The shifting explanations from federal agencies re: how supplies are allocated. For example, per Warren’s letter, HHS originally stated that stockpile distribution was based on a formula in which “25 percent of a state’s requests were fulfilled based on its population and 25 percent on its number of COVID-19 cases.” Later, FEMA said that distribution was “focused on meeting future demand models where patient levels are expected to strain state and local medical conditions in coming weeks” based on data from the CDC and HHS. Finally, one gets to what appears to be the true methodology for determining who gets what, as laid out by the president of the United States, who told Fox News in late March that governors “Have to treat us well…they can’t say, ‘Oh, gee, we should get this, we should get that,” going so far as to tell Mike Pence, head of the White House task force on coronavirus, “don’t call the governor in Washington, you’re wasting your time with him. Don’t call the woman in Michigan. If they don’t treat you right, I don’t call.”

Of course, this comes as Trump has insisted that states should effectively go it alone and not rely on the federal government for help getting supplies, with his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, saying that the SNS is “supposed to be our stockpile; it’s not supposed to be state stockpiles that they then use,” which is not how the SNS is supposed to work at all. And speaking of young Kushner, Warren et. al. would love a bit more insight into “Project Airbridge,” the administration’s public-private partnership for distributing supplies:

(snip)

The involvement of Jared Kushner in Project Airbridge and management of supply chain complicates matters further. Mr. Kushner appears to believe that requests from the states are inflated, saying “In some cases, people are requesting 10 times what they actually need.” News reports allege that Mr. Kushner may be “circumventing protocols” as he handles states’ requests. Allegedly, Mr. Kushner has served as a “liaison to different donors, to different corporate allies of this administration,” and the White House may be “directing FEMA and HHS officials to prioritize specific requests from people who are able to get Kushner on the phone.”

(end snip)

This is not failure. This is deliberate.

[SheltieLover]

1. I concur - This is obviously deliberate!

I'm glad Warren, Porter & others are on this!

I believe this Propublica article explains Kushner's statement & attitude that the ventilators belong to them! 🤬

They perceive our country & all resources as their personal assets.

https://www.propublica.org/article/taxpayers-paid-millions-to-design-a-low-cost-ventilator-for-a-pandemic-instead-the-company-is-selling-versions-of-it-overseas-

TY for posting this article!

[ProfessorGAC]

2. I Just Have To Say

I understand your desire to go down the "deliberate" path.
But, I think it more probable that this gang is so bad at EVERYTHING that it would have been monumental luck to have gotten any part of it right.
They're bad people, but I don't think they're capable of Dr. Evil scheming.
I think they're are simply no skills and no internal oversight, even over their own actions.
I think it very likely that FL got their stuff because some middle manager at SNS is from Florida, and no such manager there is from MA.
Stupidity and incompetence is equally powerful to evil in a crisis. And the likelihood that ineptness & incompetence rule the roost is very high.