Rep. Jim McGovern scorned the statement made by President Donald J. Trump after his son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner spoke on the Strategic National Stockpile not being used for individual states.
“The White House said that our national stockpile wasn’t for our states. Frankly, I didn’t know what the hell that means. Our national stockpile is there for the people of this country,” said McGovern. “There are no more excuses. Our governor should be able to make one phone call to the president and have the equipment [he] asked for show up the next day.”
The website of the Strategic National Stockpile was edited on Friday to soften language about how the stockpile is supposed to be used by states, the day after the media reported that the original version contradicted a claim by Kushner.
“Strategic National Stockpile is the nation’s largest supply of life-saving pharmaceuticals and medical supplies for use in a public health emergency severe enough to cause local supplies to run out,” read the stockpile’s homepage on Friday morning. “When state, local, tribal, and territorial responders request federal assistance to support their response efforts, the stockpile ensures that the right medicines and supplies get to those who need them most during an emergency. Organized for scalable response to a variety of public health threats, this repository contains enough supplies to respond to multiple large-scale emergencies simultaneously.”
By Friday afternoon the page had been edited to stay more in line with Trump and his senior advisors’ statements.
“The Strategic National Stockpile’s role is to supplement state and local supplies during public health emergencies. Many states have products stockpiled, as well. The supplies, medicines, and devices for life-saving care contained in the stockpile can be used as a short-term stopgap buffer when the immediate supply of adequate amounts of these materials may not be immediately available," the revision read.
McGovern isn’t the only Massachusetts politician to show upset over the Federal government’s handling of the crisis.
In the five-page letter sent on March 30 to the Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency Peter Gaynor, Sen. Elizabeth Warren pointed out that the lost orders of ventilators and hundreds of respirators were because Massachusetts was outbid by the federal government on at least three separate occasions and had two shipments seized.
“The president likes to say that we’re at war. Well, if we are at war then let’s get the people on the frontlines the masks, [personal protective equipment] and ventilators that they need to fight coronavirus,” said McGovern on Sunday. “We are the United States of America and we have doctors and nurses wearing trash bags and rain ponchos to protect themselves.”
The comparison between World War II and COVID-19 has been drawn upon at least twice publicly on Sunday. The first time by Surgeon General Jerome Adams saying that this “is going to be our Pearl Harbor moment,” in an interview on Fox News.
The second time was by McGovern on Sunday afternoon.
“When Franklin Roosevelt said that we were going to make 50,000 planes a year [during WWII], people thought it couldn’t be done. By the end of the war [the U.S.] had made 300,000 airplanes. Since we’re not getting that level of response and our Governors are scrambling to get what they need, by hook or by crook, states are competing against one another like this is ‘The Hunger Games’,” McGovern said.
However, McGovern did highlight the work both political parties had been involved in during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Washington has a reputation where Republicans and Democrats can’t agree on anything,” said McGovern “Some have joked that we can’t agree on what to have for lunch, but I think in times of crisis, it should be reassuring the Democrats and Republicans have come together and put partisan politics aside and worked for the good of the nation.”
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