There is a middle-schooler living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
No, not Barron.
“President” Donald Trump sent Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer a letter Thursday, responding to Schumer’s request Trump invoke the Defense Production Act and designate a military official as a “czar” to oversee medical equipment production and disbursement to confront the coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic emergency.
Here are some highlights from the page-and-a-half diatribe:
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- “Thank you for your Democrat public relations letter and incorrect sound bites, which are wrong in every way.”
- “Vice President Pence is in charge of the Task Force. By almost all accounts, he has done a spectacular job.”
- “The Defense Production Act (DPA) has been consistently used by my team and me for the purchase of billions of dollars’ worth of equipment, medical supplies, ventilators, and other related items.”
- “We have given New York many things, including hospitals, medical centers, medical supplies, record numbers of ventilators, and more.”
- “As you are aware, the Federal Government is merely a back-up for state governments. Unfortunately, your state needed far more of a back-up than most others.”
- “If you spent less time on your ridiculous impeachment hoax, which went haplessly on forever and ended up going nowhere (except increasing my poll numbers), and instead focused on helping the people of New York, then New York would not have been so completely unprepared for the ‘invisible enemy.'”
- “No wonder AOC and others are thinking about running against you in the primary. If they did, they would likely win.”
- “You have been missing in action, except when it comes to the ‘press.'”
- “While you have stated that you don’t like Andrew Cuomo, you ought to start working alongside him for the good of all New Yorkers.”
- “I’ve known you for many years, but I never knew how bad a Senator you are for the state of New York, until I became President.”
Remember that Schumer made a succinct and reasonable request.
Nowhere in the letter does Trump address that request.
Instead, he launches into fallacies and outright lies.
Trump supposedly contacted Schumer shortly after the letter was sent to claim he tried to prevent its delivery.
Maybe it was one of those exercises where someone vents his frustrations in an angry letter and throws it away, and it went horribly awry.
About the correspondence, Sen. Schumer responded:
“I spoke to the president late this afternoon and explained it and the result is this letter. So I’m just appalled. You know I say to the president just stop the pettiness. People are dying and so, President Trump, we need leadership. We need to get the job done. Stop the pettiness. I sent the letter with the best of intentions.”
Although the Trump administration announced it would release 4,000 more ventilators from the federal stockpile, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had delivered only 400 by the last week of March.
10,000 ventilators remain in the stockpile, and Trump claims “we are holding it back for flexibility.”
Even rear Admiral John Polowczyk stated in a press conference last week, “I’m not here to disrupt a supply chain.”
In other words, they are not interested in protecting the lives of average Americans.
They only intend to coddle corporations and the wealthy responsible for the almighty “supply chain.”
As Trump blamed the Obama administration, cases of COVID-19 were mounting.
Even while aware the pandemic was going to get worse after its first American case on Jan. 19, Trump sent 17.8 tons of personal protective equipment (PPE) to China.
Now states are scrambling for that equipment and left to compete against each other for it.
Sen. Schumer explained:
“The existing federal leadership void has left America with an ugly spectacle in which States and cities are literally fending for themselves, often in conflict and competition with each other, when trying to procure precious medical supplies and equipment.”
The federal government–the very entity that exists to “Establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty“–is rotting from the head down like a fish.
We are on our own.
Image credit: chicago.suntimes.com
