Stephanie Ruhle introduced a segment with Ken Dilanian on a new internal assessment of how the Trump administration has done in helping the country's health care workers.Click above to watch a short (2:07) video clip of that portion of the interview.
"Explain what is this all about. Day in and day out, we hear from the administration saying the hospitals have all that they need. At the same time, hospital workers and state governors are saying that's not the case," she said.
"Stephanie, this is a report by the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services. So a watchdog but within the Trump administration," Delanian said.
"And what they did was, they interviewed 324 hospital administrators in 46 states. And what they found was a health care system in a state of chaos. Totally refuting the comments by President Trump on Saturday that he said hospital administrators were thrilled with the level of supplies. This report creates a picture of dire shortages, confirming what NBC News and other outlets have reported about shortages of ventilators and masks.
"Also going further and saying in some cases, shortages of cleaning supplies and even thermometers. One case they talked about a hospital, 700 staff and two thermometers. The hospital officials are worried about the health and safety of their own workers. They're concerned about their finances. We interviewed Ann Maxwell, the assistant inspector general. She seemed genuinely stunned with some of what her team found. Let's take a listen." ANN MAXWELL: I think one moment that stands out for me is when I was talking to a hospital administrator, and he told me he had staff in the hospital out trying to procure masks and gloves from auto part shops, from home supply stores, from beauty salons, art supply stores. And I was just taken aback by how in that one example you could see both the desperation, the challenges they're facing, and ingenuity they were putting forward in trying to solve these problems to provide good patient care and save lives.
"In some cases, Stephanie, what this report found is -- federal and state stockpiles were defective. They got a shipment of masks for children and 1,000 had dry rot. So big problems with the federal response and hospital administrators are begging the federal government to do more," Delanian said.
UPDATE: At today's "press briefing" (a.k.a. Trump's daily dose of self-congratulation), a reporter tried to question Trump about the report, but he blew it off. His response, according to an article at CNN: "'Give me the name of the inspector general. Could politics be entered into that?' Trump said, indulging another troubling trait, the singling out of public officials that he deems insufficiently loyal to him personally." Here's another reference, at CNN.com, to that question by the reporter:
Trump also dismissed the reporter, Fox News correspondent Kristin Fisher. "Testing is still a big issue in this country," she said as he sighed. "When can hospitals expect to receive a quick turnaround of these test results?" Trump, agitated, said hospitals and states "are supposed to be doing the testing," sidestepping her question and shifting blame away from the federal government. After making some false claims, Trump told Fisher, "You should say 'congratulations, great job,' instead of being so horrid in the way you ask a question."
And although the segment above was an interview of Maxwell, the CNN article goes on to say "The report was written by the principal deputy inspector general for the department, Christi Grimm. According to her official biography, Grimm, who has worked for multiple administrations, is an award-winning public servant with "two decades of leadership and expertise in health and human services programs." So Grimm's career may well be on the line as well. Watch this space.
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