Trump Claims States Don’t Need Amount of Ventilators They’re Asking For: ‘I Don’t Believe You Need 40,000 or 30,000’

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What's the story?

• President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he “has a feeling” states will not require the number of pieces of medical equipment they're requesting to combat the coronavirus.
• "I have a feeling that a lot of the numbers that are being said for some areas are just bigger than they're going to be," Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday evening.

"I don't believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators. You know, at a major hospital sometimes they'll have two ventilators. All of a sudden they're saying, 'Can we order 30,000 ventilators?'"

• A day earlier, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said he doesn't have enough ventilators available to properly care for patients hospitalized with COVID-19.

"FEMA says, 'we're sending 400 ventilators. Really? What am I going to do with 40 ventilators when I need 30,000?"

• Trump directly addressed Cuomo's request, telling Hannity:

"They say, like Governor Cuomo and others, we want 30,000 of them. 30,000! You go to hospitals, they'll have one in a hospital and now all of a sudden everybody's asking for these vast numbers."

DPA

• Various lawmakers have asked Trump to use the Defense Production Act (DPA) to order American businesses to manufacture medical equipment, but the president told Hannity it was unnecessary as companies have volunteered to make them.

"I haven't had to use [the DPA]. We had Ford step up, General Motors step up, 3M step up, so many companies stepped up and they're making vast amounts of things but when you talk about ventilators, that's sort of like buying a car. It's very expensive, it's a very intricate piece of equipment, heavily computerized and the good ones are very very expensive."

What do you think?

Should Trump order manufacturers to create more medical equipment? Take action and tell your reps, then share your thoughts below.

—Josh Herman