STILL PEDDLING IT: Trump Falsely Claims He Inherited 'Empty' Stockpile

[CousinIT]

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/trump-falsely-claims-he-inherited-empty-stockpile/

. . .

As of 2016, there were at least six warehouses holding “approximately $7 billion in products across more than 900 separate line items,” according to a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

VICE News reported on March 17 that its film crew was also allowed inside one of the facilities for an episode of “VICE News Tonight” that aired in December 2016.

“[A]lthough we couldn’t reveal where it was or what exactly it had inside. It looked like a prepper’s Ikea, with row after row of containers filled with mystery medications and equipment — including that one item everyone’s been talking about lately, ventilators,” Vice News said.

In her story, Greenfieldboyce also quoted an official with a consulting firm the government had recently hired to analyze how well the stockpile could respond to a range of threats.

Rocco Casagrande, the managing director of Gryphon Scientific, told her that he couldn’t publicly discuss the results of the analysis. But, she wrote, he did say “that across the variety of threats that we examined, the Strategic National Stockpile has the adequate amount of materials in it and by and large the right type of thing.”

That doesn’t sound to us like empty shelves, either.

[struggle4progress]

1. "Putin says we should ship it all to Russia and blame Obama"

[TheBlackAdder]

2. And, if that were true, he had three years rectify it and did jack about it!

[crickets]

3. Tweety Amin is a big old fibber.

edit - Whoops, I was quoting the article mentioned in yours, CousinIT. Everybody go check out the NPR article linked by FactCheck. It's a good read.

[oasis]

4. MSM needs to throw that at Trump at next WH briefing, and demand

a straight answer.

[spanone]

5. A broken record of lies...

[CousinIT]

6. Twitter thread on this:

Last edited Mon May 18, 2020, 05:11 PM - Edit history (1)

ORIGINAL Twitter thread:

Link to tweet

UNROLLED thread:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1262207121418080258.html

1/ "Empty cupboards left by the previous administration" Trump and his goons keep saying about the national stockpile. We know better. Trump gave our supplies to China in February ignorantly assuming the virus wouldn't come to the US. HE (Trump) never replenished those supplies.

2/ So when the virus arrived on American soil, we were caught flat-footed with NO stockpile to use for our OWN people and our critical front-line workers and desperately ill patients had to go without. THIS. IS. ON. TRUMP. He loves to blame Obama for his own failures. It's BS.

3/ Factcheck on @realDonaldTrump and Peter Navarro's claims:
Trump Falsely Claims He Inherited 'Empty' Stockpile
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.”
https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/trump-falsely-claims-he-inherited-empty-stockpile/

4/ And let's be reminded that that MAINTENANCE of the stockpile, rotation of expired drugs and maintenance and charging of RESPIRATORS was allowed to LAPSE under TRUMP - because he didn't want to pay the contracts for it. But let's talk about the BIGGER PROBLEM: outsourcing.

5/ “We’ve allowed our own national capacity to manufacture things to degrade and in some places go away. And we’ve done that for cost-efficiency sake.” BECAUSE WE'VE OUTSOURCED ALL OUR MANUFACTURING TO AVOID ENVIRONMENTAL LAWS, TO GET GET CHEAP LABOR + WORKERS W/ NO RIGHTS..

6/ The United States is no longer able to “rapidly design and manufacture what we need, when we need it, and the quantities demanded,” <--- THIS is what Republicans and their goddamned vulture capitalism has done to America: Rendered us UNABLE TO PROTECT OURSELVES in a pandemic

7/ And that is NOT, in any way, shape, or form - "Obama's fault". It is the @GOP's fault as they have subscribed to this goddamned vulture/disaster capitalism for decades and they've destroyed this country doing it. Greedy, ignorant assholes. No laying THIS at Obama's feet.

8/ Finally, from a DEC 2016 analysis of Ntl Stockpile: "across the variety of threats that we examined, the Strategic National Stockpile has the adequate amount of materials in it and by and large the right type of thing.”

➡️THE SHELVES WERE NOT EMPTY when TRUMP took office.

9/ Adding this to back up the FACT that Trump DID in fact ship 18 TONS of PPE from our national stockpile to CHINA -- and TRUMP never replenished that supply. When US needed it - we had none! TRUMP, not Obama - left "shelves bare"
PolitiFact - Yes, US shipped donated personal protective equipment to China in February
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/apr/02/facebook-posts/yes-us-shipped-donated-personal-protective-equipme/

[Hermit-The-Prog]

8. Wonder how much Jarvanka sold the rest for.

Republicans are hazardous to humanity. Ever since Rotten Ronnie, they've promoted outsourcing jobs for cheap, controllable, anti-union labor. That provides more wealth for the parasite class.

[Blue Owl]

7. Hey stable genius: You don't need a "stockpile" if you contain the spread early on

When Ebola started spreading in 2014, President Obama activated the Emergency Operations Center at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. The CDC immediately deployed personnel to West Africa to coordinate a response that included vector tracing, testing, education, logistics, and communication. They trained over 24,000 medical workers in West Africa, educating them on how to prevent and control the disease before a single case left Africa or reached the U.S.

[hibbing]

9. Just like the military didn't have any ammunition n/t

[Gothmog]

10. trump is a liar

This is just another of his lies

[tulipsandroses]

11. Lets just humor him and say OK the cupboards were bare. YOU have been president for 3 plus years

What have YOU done to fill the cupboards? Was it not your responsibility in THE LAST 3 YEARS to refill it? You can't hold the last president accountable for what YOU HAVE NOT DONE. YOU had ample chance to stock the shelves. This is on you no matter how you slice it.

[uponit7771]

13. +1, his minions aren't even using that one

[pansypoo53219]

12. the moron forgot where he put the key.

[Norbert]

14. So let's assume the orange menace is correct

and he indeed inherited an empty stockpile.

He had 3 years to fill that stockpile. Three years.

He is either as inept of president as they come or he is the biggest liar that ever lived.