Jake Tapper Grills Covid Testing Czar: Are You ‘Afraid’ to Bring Up Issues to Trump Because It Would Upset Him?
CNN’s Jake Tapper spoke with Admiral Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health and coronavirus testing czar, about ongoing issues with testing months into this public health crisis — something recently raised by President Donald Trump’s own former acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney.
Tapper asked Giroir why testing isn’t where it needs to be, months into this pandemic. Giroir talked up the successes they’ve had so far while acknowledging the need to improve turnaround times.
Tapper repeatedly confronted Giroir on why the Trump administration isn’t “doing everything it can to get testing where it needs to be,” saying at one point “It’s almost August… [and] we’re still hearing about testing problems.”
“In March, President Trump said — falsely — anyone who wants a test can get a test. At what point will it be true, sir, that anyone who wants a test will be able to get one with a quick turnaround so as to be effective. When will that be true?”
“What is true now is anyone who needs a test can get a test,” Giroir said. “We have to prioritize our testing. As I told you, in August we’ll have 50 million tests available… Everyone who needs a test — we’re prioritizing that and they will get it. The two-week turnaround, again, I told you the data. it’s 4.27 days for half of those tests that are done in the commercial labs. I’m highly confident that turnaround will decrease this week with all the steps we’re doing like surge testing, point of care testing, nursing home testing.”
“We’re working with every tool that we have, every authority we have. The president knows there’s a way that we can open up safely and sensibly based on the data and that’s what we’re doing,” he added.
At one point, Tapper acknowledged that the Trump administration has invoked the Defense Production Act with respect to masks and ventilators, but not on testing. And he straight-up asked Giroir if he’s reluctant to push Trump on this issue because he doesn’t want to upset the president:
“Has the Trump administration, has the president, invoked the DPA to get labs up to speed, lab hiring and lab equipment? You don’t even need to do the DPA to do that for federal labs. That’s what I’m talking about. There seems to be this reluctance to push the president to do what he needs to do to get the testing up to speed. I know that he’s under the misguided impression that more testing is bad and makes him look bad, which as you know is completely false. And I’m wondering if you and others are just afraid to do this because you don’t want to upset him, afraid to ask him to do what he needs to do to invoke the DPA to force the federal labs to get up to speed to where we need to be so that we can isolate the virus, as you know.”
He reiterated, “Are you afraid to bring this up to President Trump because it will upset him?”
“Everyone of the administration understands the importance of testing,” Giroir responded. “Nobody in the task force is afraid to bring up anything to the vice president or the president. Every time I’ve met with the president, he’s been listening to all the data, he assesses that, he understands it. I meet with the vice president almost every single day. No one is trying to stop testing in this country. No one has ever told me to do that. We want more, we want better, we want quicker.”
You can watch above, via CNN.
