Kushner Shenanigans, Colorado

Jared Kusher rarely speaks, but he did so at the daily Trump Show on April 2. First, he said, "Very early this morning, I got a call from the president. He told me he was hearing from friends of his in New York that the New York public hospital system was running low on critical supply." As a result, he said, New York was receiving 4,000 respirators from the national stockpile.

Ooookaaay, so that's how the national stockpile of respirators is distributed? When the president hears from his friends that respirators are needed? Trump is surrounded by medical experts who can tell him where equipment needs to be allocated, but it takes calls from his friends to get him to act?

But Kushner continued, and he mystified people by saying: ""You also have a situation where in some states, FEMA allocated ventilators to the states and you have instances where in cities they’re running out, but the state still has a stockpile and the notion of the federal stockpile was, it’s supposed to be our stockpile. It’s not supposed to be state stockpiles that they then use."

WTF? Kushner left the press conference without facing questions about his statement, so he left reporters and pundits scratching their heads: The federal stockpile is supposed to be "their" stockpile? Who the hell is "they"? It's not for the states to use? How can that possibly make any sense?

The generally accepted purpose of a national stockpile of devices such as respirators is that such a stockpile is maintained by the federal government for the purpose of distributing to states as they are needed -- but not under the Trump administration, which refuses to take responsibility for the distribution of respirators, probably in an attempt to dodge negative press resulting from poor management of the process, shoving the blame, if blame there is to be, to the individual governors.

The way it is now, Trump's administration stays out of the process, and governors of states that need respirators are expected to go out into the public marketplace and bid against other states, hospitals, or other entities in the market for respirators. That's what Jared Polis, Democratic governor of Colorado, did. He was able to find a company willing to provide Colorado with 500 respirators that would be available soon. A contract was signed. So all will be well -- right?

Well, maybe not. At that point, FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) jumped into action. I'm used to thinking of FEMA as a good guy, but now that it's under Kushner's direction, not so much. FEMA proceeded to exercise force majeure and override Governor Polis's signed contract on the grounds that this was a federal emergency and FEMA took precedence. Which is true; FEMA was acting within its authority, and Polis had no recourse. He could only fume in anger as FEMA stole his respirators.

It soon became clearer what Kushner meant when he was talking about "our stockpile." On April 8, Trump tweeted, "Will be immediately sending 100 Ventilators to Colorado at the request of Senator Gardner!" [exclamation point emphasis Trump's, not mine.}

So to considerable fanfare, Trump grandly dispensed 100 (not 500) respirators to hard-hit Colorado, loudly crediting a Republican senator, Cory Gardner. Respirators taken from the 500 Polis ordered and FEMA hijacked.

Thanks so much to our wonderful President Trump and far-seeing Republican Senator Gardner!

Click here for an article from the editorial board of The Denver Post entitled "Trump is playing a disgusting political game with our lives." According to the article:

President Donald Trump is treating life-saving medical equipment as emoluments he can dole out as favors to loyalists. It’s the worst imaginable form of corruption — playing political games with lives. For the good of this nation during what should be a time of unity, he must stop.