Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) lied about the ventilator situation in the United States on Friday night to launch a political attack on President Donald Trump.
Duckworth made the false statement in response to Trump attacking New York Democrat Governor Andrew Cuomo on Friday when Trump tweeted: “Cuomo ridiculously wanted ’40 thousand Ventilators’. We gave him a small fraction of that number, and it was plenty. State should have had them in stockpile!”
Duckworth responded, “As he watches Americans die by the thousands, Trump remains incapable of showing empathy or leadership. He *could* have saved lives by sending more ventilators, but he didn’t. That’s true regardless of who Donald ‘I don’t take responsibility at all’ Trump tries to blame.”
As he watches Americans die by the thousands, Trump remains incapable of showing empathy or leadership. He *could* have saved lives by sending more ventilators, but he didn’t. That’s true regardless of who Donald “I don’t take responsibility at all” Trump tries to blame. https://t.co/W9KGDXZk4d
— Tammy Duckworth (@SenDuckworth) April 17, 2020
During a White House Coronavirus Task Force press briefing this week, Adam Boehler, a former HHS official who is now CEO of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation and has been tapped to help with the coronavirus response, said, “There’s been no American that has needed a ventilator that has not received one.”
Duckworth provided no evidence to substantiate her false claim as even Governor Cuomo has acknowledged that no one has died due to a lack of ventilators.
“Have we saved everyone? No,” Cuomo said during a press conference this week. “But have we lost anyone because we didn’t have a bed, or we didn’t have a ventilator, or we didn’t have health care staff? No. People we lost are the people we couldn’t save.”
Democrat Governor of New York: "Have we saved everyone? No. But have we lost anyone because we didn’t have a bed, or we didn’t have a ventilator, or we didn’t have health care staff? No. People we lost are the people we couldn't save."pic.twitter.com/eONgDhWFGi
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) April 14, 2020
National Review highlighted the progression of Cuomo’s claims surrounding his state’s need for ventilators:
In the state that (as of today) has one-third of the country’s confirmed COVID-19 cases, New York governor Andrew Cuomo sounded the alarm for ventilators repeatedly. On March 27, he acknowledged “I don’t have a crystal ball” but said his state desperately needed 30,000 ventilators, maybe 40,000, but had only 12,000. When President Trump noted that Cuomo’s state had thousands of unused ventilators it hadn’t even placed yet, Cuomo admitted this was true but said he still needed more: “Yes, they’re in a stockpile because that’s where they’re supposed to be because we don’t need them yet. We need them for the apex,” Cuomo said at the time. On April 2, Cuomo predicted the state would run out of ventilators in six days “at the current burn rate.” But on April 6, Cuomo noted, “We’re ok, and we have some in reserve.”
Now New York appears to have passed the apex. Deaths, a lagging indicator, crested at 799 on April 9 and hit 606 on April 16, the lowest figure since April 6. Hospitalizations are also declining, and on April 16 also hit their lowest level since April 6. Cuomo today has so many ventilators he is giving them away: On April 15, he said he was sending 100 of them to Michigan and 50 to Maryland. On April 16, he announced he was sending 100 to New Jersey.
Late last month, White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx said that there was no evidence that there were any shortages of ventilators around the U.S.
“We were reassured after meeting with colleagues in New York there are still ICU beds remaining and there’s still significant, over a thousand or 2,000 ventilators that have not been used yet,” Birx said on March 26. “Please, for the reassurance of people around the world, to wake up this morning and look at people talking about creating DNR situations, do not resuscitate situations for patients, there is no situation in the United States right now that warrants that kind of discussion.”
“You could be thinking about it in a hospital, certainly many hospitals talk about it this on a daily basis,” Birx continued. “But to say that to the American people, to make the implication, that when they need a hospital bed it’s not going be there or when they need that ventilator it won’t be there, we don’t have evidence of that right now.”