Originally appeared at ZeroHedge
Update (1135ET): It looks like Trump just placed a big Amazon order. Unfortunately, those “ventilators” probably don’t qualify for prime shipping.
We have just purchased many Ventilators from some wonderful companies. Names and numbers will be announced later today!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 27, 2020
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Apparently, President Trump’s plan to invoke his extensive authority to direct economic production, and then refuse to use it because companies are allegedly scrambling to “do the right thing” (or at least say the right thing) isn’t working out as well as he had hoped.
Trump tweeted Friday that General Motors had revised guidance on masks it had planned to deliver to the government, delaying the delivery date and lowering the order total. And, Trump claimed, the company is charging “top dollar”, as Trump put it.
He slammed CEO Mary Barra “Mary ‘B'” and threatened to “invoke ‘P'” – which we suspect means the Defense Production Act Authority. As most of his Democratic opponents have already pushed him to invoke the power – and Trump has refused repeatedly and in turn retaliated by claiming his critics were just trying to score cheap political points at the expense of America’s always-dependable and infallibly civic-minded corporations. And during a crisis, no less.
As usual with “this” General Motors, things just never seem to work out. They said they were going to give us 40,000 much needed Ventilators, “very quickly”. Now they are saying it will only be 6000, in late April, and they want top dollar. Always a mess with Mary B. Invoke “P”.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 27, 2020
General Motors MUST immediately open their stupidly abandoned Lordstown plant in Ohio, or some other plant, and START MAKING VENTILATORS, NOW!!!!!! FORD, GET GOING ON VENTILATORS, FAST!!!!!! @GeneralMotors @Ford
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 27, 2020
Invoke “P” means Defense Production Act!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 27, 2020
Now Trump is slamming General Motors and Ford and demanding that they do the right thing and ramp up production immediately – before he forces them to. Or he could just end it now and order them to pick up the slack.
It looks like Trump is already setting up these very same companies to take the fall when more states run into situations like New York, which doesn’t have enough ventilators (some counties in Michigan have adopted a protocol that calls for not even using ventilators on the patients with the lowest odds of survival).
