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President Trump lashed out at Sen. Chuck Schumer on Thursday for questioning his administration’s response to the coronavirus crisis, blaming New York for getting a “late start” on battling the rapidly spreading pandemic.
“Somebody please explain to Cryin’ Chuck Schumer that we do have a military man in charge of distributing goods, a very talented Admiral, in fact,” the president posted on Twitter.
“New York has gotten far more than any other State, including hospitals & a hospital ship, but no matter what, always complaining. It wouldn’t matter if you got ten times what was needed, it would never be good enough,” Trump continued in a second posting.
“Unlike other states, New York unfortunately got off to a late start. You should have pushed harder. Stop complaining & find out where all of these supplies are going. Cuomo working hard!”
Schumer, the Democratic leader in the Senate, appeared on CNN Wednesday evening when he criticized Trump’s decision to put White House trade adviser Peter Navarro in charge of overseeing the production of masks and ventilators, saying he’s “not up to the job.”
“He’s a very nice man, but he has had no experience doing things like this. And they have no one, that I can best tell, in charge of the distribution,” Schumer said on CNN’s “Out Front.”
“They need one person, a military person, a general who knows how to deal with logistics and order mastering, who knows command and control, you need to place that person, the czar, in charge of both production and distribution of all of [these] kinds of needed equipment and get it to the places that are needed and that have shortages.”
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has been holding daily briefings on the state’s response to the coronavirus, has been critical of the federal government for not providing enough ventilators to hospitals in the state as the rate of infection spikes. He has said the states are in a bidding war with other states for the ventilators because the Trump administration hasn’t taken the lead on getting the devices to the states.
The governor estimated that the Empire State would need roughly 40,000 ventilators as the “apex” of the outbreak hits this month. However, late last week he said the ventilators were still in storage because “the hospitals don’t need them yet.”
Trump last Friday said he appointed Navarro to serve as the coordinator of the national Defense Production Act that the president has invoked to compel General Motors to make ventilators for coronavirus patients.
Earlier last month, Trump named Adm. Brett Giroir to coordinate the efforts of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, local governments and private and public laboratories on testing.
