President Trump wouldn't guarantee every American who needs a ventilator will get a ventilator amid the coronavirus outbreak, getting ...
President Trump wouldn't guarantee every American who needs a ventilator will get a ventilator amid the coronavirus outbreak, getting cheeky with the reporter who asked the question instead.
'Don't be a cutie pie,' Trump said to ABC News' Jonathan Karl who kept pressing the president to make the commitment. '"Everyone who needs one,"' Trump repeated, mocking the newsman. 'Nobody's ever done what we've done. Nobody's done anything like we've been able to do. And everything I took over was a mess.'
The question about ventilators came after Trump's Friday announcement that he will push U.S. manufacturers to build 100,000 ventilators 'pretty quickly' to meet the needs of American hospitals during the pandemic.
President Trump told ABC News' Jonathan Karl 'don't be a cute pie' when the reporter asked at a White House briefing Friday whether the president could guarantee that every American who needs a ventilator would get one
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo had pushed the president to have more ventilators built saying his state alone would need between 30,000 and 40,000 of the devices.
New York is currently the center of the outbreak in the United States.
'We're manufacturing a lot of them now, we're accumulating a lot, we're taking a lot through the act, we're actually taking them,' Trump said Friday afternoon. 'We're going to have plenty.'
'And if for some reason you're going to need even more, we're going to be prepared,' the president added.
He said the federal government has a stockpile of over 10,000 ventilators, but he has been reluctant to send them out to states until they're necessary.
'And then we have to try and get them back,' Trump said, describing that process as more difficult.
The president then again tried to suggest any shortages weren't his fault.
'When I took this over it was an empty box,' he said. 'We had a lot of broken systems.'
Trump was also asked if the 100-day timeframe, for those 100,000 ventilators, would be quick enough for the country's needs as the virus rapidly spreads around the country.
'What we've done, nobody can even imagine,' Trump responded.
'So here's what I tell you, I think we're in really good shape. This is a pandemic, the likes of which nobody's seen before. I think we're in great shape,' he said.
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