
The Strategic National Stockpile was created in 1999, and, as of April 2, was described on a Department of Health and Human Services website as “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.”

When a reporter asked him about that claim during another briefing the following day, Trump again said he inherited “an empty shelf” that he had to refill.Īnd he continued to use that inaccurate description on March 30, during an interview with the hosts of “Fox & Friends.” “We started off with an empty shelf,” he said, adding, “We didn’t have very much in terms of medical product … and we built something really good.” Strategic National Stockpile We took over a very depleted place, in a lot of ways.” Tara O’Toole, a former homeland security official during the Obama administration who is now executive vice president at the nonprofit strategic investment firm In-Q-Tel, told us in an email.Īt least three times in the past week, however, Trump has sought to blame former President Barack Obama’s administration for the current state of the stockpile, which has been unable to meet the demand for additional supplies expected to be needed to treat people with COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, or to protect the doctors and nurses caring for those patients.ĭuring a White House coronavirus task force briefing on March 26, in which Trump mentioned the number of respirators, face shields and ventilators that had so far been distributed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the president said: “We took over an empty shelf. “The SNS was definitely not an empty shell,” Dr. While the government does not publicize all of the contents of the repository, at the time Trump took office, the Strategic National Stockpile, as it is formally known, reportedly contained vast amounts of materials that state and local health officials could use during an emergency, including vaccines, antiviral drugs, ventilators and protective gear for doctors and nurses. It means the United States of America.More than once, President Donald Trump has falsely claimed that the federal stockpile of emergency medicine and supplies he inherited from his predecessor was an “empty shelf.” (A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services told Politico that the edits were planned long before Kushner spoke.) Asked on Friday what Kushner meant when he said the federal supply was “our stockpile,” President Trump said, “You know what ‘our’ means: United States of America.our. In the aftermath of Wednesday's press conference, the Department of Health and Human Services changed the language on the Strategic National Stockpile’s information page to more closely align with what Kushner said publicly.

New York doesn’t need all the ventilators,” Kushner reportedly said during a White House meeting, according to a person present. I’m doing my own projections, and I’ve gotten a lot smarter about this. “I have all this data about ICU capacity. But as Vanity Fair reported last week, Kushner has apparently cast doubt on the overall need. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a key member of the White House coronavirus task force, had suggested as well. New York governor Andrew Cuomo estimated that his state could need more than 30,000 in total, a number that Dr. The supply of ventilators available to states during the pandemic has been a major issue throughout this health crisis. There’s states everywhere! I’d say more than 40 of them, Jared! And some parts of them badly need supplies right now-like the city that you used to live in, and which I pray you never show your polished fucking face again,” Oliver said. “And here’s the interesting thing about the United States: it’s almost entirely made of states. It’s a national stockpile for use by the United States, you fucking moron,” said Oliver, who had previously referred to Kushner as looking like an “alt-right Pinocchio.” He then offered the embattled advisor a geography lesson. “Wait, 'our' stockpile? It’s not your stockpile.
