Washington Post Editorial Board Issues Sharp Rebuke Of Donald Trump's Coronavirus Response
The Washington Post editorial board on Friday followed its counterpart at The New York Times in calling for President Donald Trump to address the coronavirus pandemic as if the country was at war.
In an op-ed titled “We face a wartime supply shortage. Where is Trump’s wartime response?”, the Post’s board noted how looming shortages of medical supplies (such as masks and chemical reagents) threatened to undermine the hard work of health-care workers who are on the front line.
“The dimensions of the supply problem approach wartime in size and scope,” it wrote. “No one was prepared for a pandemic; now everyone must shoulder extra effort.”
The board chided Trump’s confusing messaging on the Defense Production Act that allows “the government to address supply shortages by giving directives to industry to ramp up production” and the president’s suggestion that state governors should solve supply issues themselves.
It then urged Trump to “deploy every tool at his disposal to address the shortages now.” “If this is a wartime scale of a problem, where is the wartime response?” the column concluded. On Tuesday, the Times’ board similarly called on Trump to put the country on a wartime footing.
The virus has so far sickened more than 270,000 people worldwide, killing almost 11,500. In the U.S., there have been almost 20,000 cases and 275 deaths.
Read The Post’s full editorial here.
Related...
George Conway: 'Don't Be Fooled' By Donald Trump's Change In Tone On Coronavirus
Ex-Trump Adviser Asks What Could Be Most Heartless Question About Lockdowns Yet
Roy Wood Jr. Names The Pandemic Movie Donald Trump Should Definitely Not Watch
Also on HuffPost
Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
