Jared Kushner, senior adviser to President Trump, listens to the president during a hearing session with cybersecurity experts at the Roosevelt Room in the White House in Washington on Tuesday, January 31, 2017.
Jabin Botsford | The Washington Post | Getty Images
First White House adviser and US President-in-law Jared Kushner has defended the Trump administration’s strategy to combat the coronavirus pandemic, saying others have tried to use the crisis to “politicize” play “- but not President Donald Trump.
“Some people have chosen to play politics with the pandemic, President Trump has chosen not to politicize it and he has done everything possible to try to find out how people can help whatever care they need. , “Kushner told CNBC in an exclusive interview on Friday.
“This is a global pandemic, it came from China in our country. It has destroyed many countries around the world and I think President Trump has dealt with it in a very responsible way,” he added.
In February, when there were only three cases of Covid-19 in the US, Trump accused the Democrats of politicizing the virus and used it as a “new hoax” to damage his reputation.
Since then, the coronavirus has infected more than 21.5 million people worldwide and killed at least 773,000 people, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The US is the nation least affected and accounts for about 25% of the global cases reported so far.
Asked by CNBC’s Hadley Gamble whether it had been a mistake for the US not to have a national program to fight the virus, Kushner said the government oversees the purchase, production and distribution of resources needed during the pandemic, as well as masks and fans.
“As far as a national strategy is concerned, the task of the federal government was to get the resources the country needed,” he said.
“You heard all these hysterical reports about doctors on the front lines who could not get masks, did not have enough ventilators, you had drivers who required far more ventilators than they needed, and again, every patient in America who.” “When a fan needed a fan, President Trump distributed them well,” Kushner told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble.
The U.S. government has been criticized for its handling of the coronavirus epidemic, which has recorded more than 5.4 million confirmed cases of the virus and where more than 170,000 have been killed, according to Hopkins data on Sunday.
Kushner led a coronavirus response task force focused on gear protection for medical workers and drawing up a national test plan. His task force, which runs in parallel with the government’s official task force, led by Vice President Mike Pence, was accused of insolence and a lack of transparency about his dealings.
It was widely reported that a nationwide strategy on testing fell in favor of a state-by-state response to disrespect Democratic rulers in some of the heaviest hit states. The White House denied those allegations.
Kushner argued that the Trump administration had provided an adequate supply of resources to states, but that it did not want to take over its decision-making.
“The federal government has done a lot to stimulate the supply (of resources). Every governor who needs resources, we have dealt with them and we have done it. Governors have the states … President Trump of Washington is will not tell them how to carry out their states. “
Asked if there were any regrets about the White House approach, Kushner said “there are always things you can do differently. He did not go further.
“But again, this is an unusual challenge and I think he (Trump’s) has made a lot of good decisions … we have 50 states, which means you have 50 CEOs, and his job is to work with them all, he added.
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