Impeached President Donald Trump blurted out another inconvenient truth on Twitter Sunday: when it comes to the coronavirus crisis, the states are on their own. State and local governments are all too aware of that fact, because the lack of federal help—of any kind of plan—is leaving states holding the bag. They're having to compete with one another to get the resources they need and everyone is falling short.
On ABC's This Week Sunday, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer likened it to "building the airplane as we fly it right now. […] It would be nice to have a national strategy." Yes, it would. It would in fact be critical to have a national strategy. That would include Trump invoking the Defense Production Act and mandating private companies to produce crucial medical supplies, which he's been talking about maybe doing for a week but doesn't want to until we have a "worst case scenario," whatever he imagines that to be. Maybe if Ivanka caught COVID-19?
Trump, by the way has even been lying about that. On Friday he said he had "invoked" the Defense Production Act and "put it into gear," which made others in the administration have to scramble to try to explain what he was talking about, because he definitely has not invoked it. Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Peter T. Gaynor went on CNN to try to explain what in the hell the administration is doing and ended up with the lame explanation that Trump is using the threat of invoking the DPA as "leverage" to get private companies to do the right thing and "If it comes to a point we have to pull the lever, we will."
Governors and mayors, meanwhile, are screaming that the damn lever needs to be pulled. "We need the product now," New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Sunday. "We have cries from hospitals around the state. I've spoken to governors around the country, and they're in the same situation." New York Mayor Bill de Blasio was in rare agreement. "April is going to be a lot worse than March, and May could be worse than April," de Blasio said in a Sunday news conference. "We are very much on our own at this point."
On CNN, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said that for the states, the situation is unsustainable. "We're competing against each other. We're competing against other countries. You know, it's a wild west, I would say, out there. And indeed, we're overpaying, I would say, for (personal protective equipment), because of that competition," Pritzker said. "This should have been a coordinated effort by the federal government."
Even state and local police officials are pushing for help, pleading to the administration to get tests out across the nation. "Stop testing NBA players, and start testing our first responders," a California police chief pleaded on a conference call with White House and Department of Homeland Security officials.
Democratic Sens. Chris Murphy and Brian Schatz are introducing legislation Monday to try to force Trump's hand on the DPA. "There's clearly bipartisan angst over the President's reluctance to take further measures on the manufacturing and supply chain for medical equipment," Murphy said in an interview with CNN. "It's such a no-brainer. There's a desperate need." Their bill directed the administration to ensure production of "at least 500 million N95 respirators, 200,000 ventilators, 20 million face shields, 500 million pairs of medical gloves and 20 million surgical gowns."