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

[CousinIT]

6. Twitter thread on this:

Last edited Mon May 18, 2020, 04:11 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/