‘Very Frustrated’ Illinois Governor Calls Out Trump for Coronavirus Failures: Federal Government ‘Completely Mishandled the Testing’

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker described himself as “very frustrated” about the country’s coronavirus response so far and called out President Donald Trump’s lack of leadership and the ongoing failures to give states sufficient testing capability to identify infections and slow the pandemic.

Staring off the interview, CNN’s Erin Burnett asked the Democratic governor what, specifically, he wanted to hear from the president’s Oval Office address later that same evening. As of Wednesday night, Illinois officially had 25 positive cases of coronavirus, but experts suggest the real number is much higher but can’t be known until more widespread testing is completed.

“Well, I am very frustrated,” Pritzker said. “I want to hear President Trump address the fact that we do not have the tests that we need to test all of the people who need them and want them. He said that a little while ago. Maybe a week or two ago. That, ‘Well, everyone who needs a test can get a test.’ Well, the truth of the matter is that we only have a few thousand tests total. So we have had to make sure we do lots of other testing before we even get to a coronavirus test. And there are many people in Illinois or need or want those tests that can’t get them.”

“What I am most frustrated about is the federal government has completely mishandled the testing,” Pritzker added. “There aren’t enough reagent, there aren’s enough RNA extraction kits or test kits or tests and the result is that we’ve been left on our own. If he had let our great research institutions, our hospitals, right here in the state of Illinois, not to mention around the country, develop our own tests, we would have been much further along, but they banned that early on. I think they have given up on that now. But it’s late.”

“President Trump’s former Homeland Security Advisor Tom Bossert, governor, warned in an op-ed that the U.S. is running out of time,” Burnett noted. “Two weeks of delay can mean the difference between success and failure. Do you think there is still time, from where you sit, governor, to turn things around?”

“Here’s what I can say, is that I think governors around the country have done a very good job of trying to stay out of this. We, in Illinois, have been working on this, frankly, since last summer,” Pritzker explained. “We also need to provide unemployment benefits. This is something the federal government should and could get on, right now. There ought to be a declaration of an emergency around coronavirus, which will unlock our ability to provide unemployment benefits for people who are living paycheck to paycheck, but are being asked to stay home perhaps for 14 days. Fourteen days is a very long time not to get one.”

Watch the video above, via CNN.

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