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Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) falsely accused President Trump Friday of killing Americans hit by the COVID-19 Chinese coronavirus by not sending ventilators. No American has gone without a ventilator who needed one let alone died for a lack of one, even though at times there has been panic about potential shortages that did not pan out. States that were begging Trump for ventilators, like New York and Washington, are sending surplus ventilators to other states.
File screen image, March 22.
Duckworth falsely accused Trump over a tweet he made criticizing her fellow Democrat New York Governor Andrew Coumo. Trump truthfully said as part of a feud with Cuomo earlier Friday, “Cuomo ridiculously wanted “40 thousand Ventilators”. We gave him a small fraction of that number, and it was plenty. State should have had them in stockpile!”
Duckworth’s heartless lie in response, “As he watches Americans die by the thousands, Trump remains incapable of showing empathy or leadership. He *could* have saved lives by sending more ventilators, but he didn’t. That’s true regardless of who Donald “I don’t take responsibility at all” Trump tries to blame.”
As he watches Americans die by the thousands, Trump remains incapable of showing empathy or leadership. He *could* have saved lives by sending more ventilators, but he didn’t. That’s true regardless of who Donald “I don’t take responsibility at all” Trump tries to blame. https://t.co/W9KGDXZk4d
— Tammy Duckworth (@SenDuckworth) April 17, 2020
The Trump campaign replied calling out Duckworth, “Tammy Duckworth is lying. Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, said no one — NO ONE — died because they didn’t have a ventilator. It’s a pretty sick thing to lie like this!”
Tammy Duckworth is lying.
Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, said no one — NO ONE — died because they didn’t have a ventilator.
It’s a pretty sick thing to lie like this!
— Trump War Room – Text TRUMP to 88022 (@TrumpWarRoom) April 18, 2020
https://t.co/U3nJRwCWk6 https://t.co/AMBdDxVgai
— Trump War Room – Text TRUMP to 88022 (@TrumpWarRoom) April 18, 2020
The National Review’s Kyle Smith reported Friday on The Ventilator Shortage That Wasn’t (excerpt):
In March, one of the most feared aspects of the pandemic was the widely reported coming shortage of ventilators. One well-publicized estimate, repeated by the New York Times, the New Yorker and CNN, was that the U.S. would need roughly one million ventilators, or more than five times as many as we had. Gulp. Ventilators are expensive, they’re complex machines, and they can’t be churned out in the thousands overnight.
In the state that (as of today) has one-third of the country’s confirmed COVID-19 cases, New York governor Andrew Cuomo sounded the alarm for ventilators repeatedly. On March 27, he acknowledged “I don’t have a crystal ball” but said his state desperately needed 30,000 ventilators, maybe 40,000, but had only 12,000. When President Trump noted that Cuomo’s state had thousands of unused ventilators it hadn’t even placed yet, Cuomo admitted this was true but said he still needed more: “Yes, they’re in a stockpile because that’s where they’re supposed to be because we don’t need them yet. We need them for the apex,” Cuomo said at the time. On April 2, Cuomo predicted the state would run out of ventilators in six days “at the current burn rate.” But on April 6, Cuomo noted, “We’re ok, and we have some in reserve.”
Now New York appears to have passed the apex. Deaths, a lagging indicator, crested at 799 on April 9 and hit 606 on April 16, the lowest figure since April 6. Hospitalizations are also declining, and on April 16 also hit their lowest level since April 6. Cuomo today has so many ventilators he is giving them away: On April 15, he said he was sending 100 of them to Michigan and 50 to Maryland. On April 16, he announced he was sending 100 to New Jersey…
UPDATE: Duckworth again accused Trump of not providing ventilators in an appearance on MSNBC Friday night and posted to Twitter, “For Americans in need of ventilators at hospitals in Illinois or anywhere in America right now, they don’t care where it comes from. Or who is to blame. That doesn’t matter. What they need is help. That’s what effective leaders do. And it’s the opposite of what Trump has done.”
For Americans in need of ventilators at hospitals in Illinois or anywhere in America right now, they don’t care where it comes from. Or who is to blame. That doesn’t matter.
What they need is help. That’s what effective leaders do. And it’s the opposite of what Trump has done. pic.twitter.com/vUDHzo6waR
— Tammy Duckworth (@SenDuckworth) April 18, 2020
There was no mention by the spiteful, ungrateful Duckworth that her state Illinois received the first ventilators made by GM on Friday, the result of President Trump pressuring industries to adapt and make ventilators as fast as possible.
Excerpt from WDRB-TV: “A General Motors (GM) plant in Kokomo, Indiana, has delivered its first shipment of ventilators to a hospital in need. A hospital in Olympia Fields, Illinois, received the first shipment of ventilators Friday morning. Other ventilators made by the plant will be delivered to a hospital in Chicago…”
On Thursday, Duckworth was named by Trump to his bi-partisan Opening Up America Again Congressional Group.
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