Let’s look at the data points, shall we?
tRump’s entire response so far has been to lie, downplay and deny the truth to “We the Peasants”. However, he made sure that his enablers in the senate (and their donors — does anybody really doubt that he told his favorite well-heeled cultists about this as well) got the actual truth. So they could then go out and PROFIT from it. He continued for the next several weeks to lie to We the Peasants day after day after day.
When people questioned him as to whether testing kits should only be available to the rich and highly connected, his response was:
“that’s just the story of life”
Meantime, he tried to get a promising new vaccine made exclusively for the US. Does anybody here think that, out of the goodness of his heart, he meant for that vaccine to be distributed to We the American people? Or is it soooooo much more likely that, if he could get his hands on it, he’d make sure his “pharma bro’s” would be able to make a (literal) killing off of it by charging astronomically high prices for it? All while he made sure that his mar a lago buds had first dibs on it.
As the enormity of his *criminal* dereliction of duty became obvious to all, he told governors that
they were on their own
in trying to get critically-needed supplies and protective equipment for their people. It never occurred to him — in the slightest — that the government he heads could do anything to help. It wasn’t until March f***ng 18th that he finally signed an order to possibly invoke federal authority to do so.
But that didn’t mean he was actually going to use that authority. When the truth could no longer be ignored, he let the cat out of the bag. He “could” trigger the Defense Production Act, allowing him to push private industry to manufacture critically-needed supplies, but he’s not going to move forward with that because:
“The federal government's not supposed to be out there buying vast amounts of items and then shipping. You know, we’re not a shipping clerk.”
And today we find out that the biggest competitor to governors getting the supplies they need for their states is … the federal government:
The president replied he still wants governors to seek out their own medical equipment, like protective gear for doctors and nurses as well as respirators, but acknowledged the federal government has greater buying power than any state.
“Prices are always a component of that also. And maybe that’s why you lost to the feds, OK, that’s probably why,” Trump said.
He’s not buying those supplies so that he can get them to the American people — he’s buying them to protect the profits — and ONLY the profits — of his donor class.
That’s who he feels he works for. And guess what — those ARE the only people he’s working for. The other 320 million of us — well, as he said to the governors, the rest of us get to lose out to him and his millionaire buds.