President Donald Trump said Monday that he’s ready to help other countries who are in need of ventilators for patients with advanced cases of coronavirus and may soon be shipping the breathing machines to European nations because he believes the United States will have more than enough of them to spare.
During a press briefing in the Rose Garden, the president announced that Ford and General Electric healthcare will be producing “50,000 ventilators” and that nine other companies are also “doing ventilators.”
The Daily Beast notes that Trump then heaped praise on his administration for its tepid response to the COVID-19 pandemic which has claimed the lives of over 3,100 Americans and suggested the U.S. will have a surplus of the machines:
“As we outpace what we need we’re going to be sending them to Italy. We’re going to be sending them to France. We’re going to be sending them to Spain, where they have tremendous problems and other countries as we can. But the fact that we’re doing so many so quickly is a tribute to our great companies.”
But despite his braggadocio and specious claims of there soon being more than enough ventilators to go around, governors across the country report that they are still woefully short when it comes to the items. Trump failed to address those concerns.
Trump also reiterated a line he’s been using in recent days that his administration will be responsible for saving at least 1 million lives and that only 200,000 Americans are expected to die as a result of coronavirus:
“We’re really getting the job done. People are very impressed and I’m very impressed by the people at FEMA, the people in the Army Corps of Engineers, because what they’ve done, I’ve never seen anybody do anything like it.”
People are not that impressed, and there’s no reason they should be. This administration has repeatedly failed to provide the equipment needed to treat the current medical crisis, and that alone is led to additional casualties.
Featured Image Via Screenshot
